Morgan Davis

Kickstart was founded in 2007 when Brian Cummings of the University of Utah joined forces with Paul Ahlstrom, Dinesh Patel and Gavin Christensen of vSpring Capital to design a seed fund that would unite the community behind the region's best entrepreneurs and technologies and create great companies locally. Under the guidance of managing director Gavin Christensen, Kickstart was designed to align the incentives between the major players within the local ecosystem to fund local seed-stage companies. Kickstart was founded and backed by these same players: local venture capital, angel investor groups, community-minded corporations, and universities. According to published reports, Kickstart has raised $3.65M as part of an ongoing fundraising effort.