Groover Labs visits emporia main street
The Groover Labs team hit the road to meet with several rural partners interested in participating in the ACCEL-KS at Groover Labs grant program. As a reminder, Groover Labs was awarded a grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce to award proof-of-concept funding up to $25,000 to founders across the state with ideas primed for scale and commercialization.
Groover Labs Co-founder Tracy Hoover discussed the ACCEL-KS grant program with Emporia Main Street. Photo Courtesy of Jess Buchholz
On Tuesday, we visited Emporia Main Street, a nonprofit in Emporia, Kansas, that helps entrepreneurs launch businesses, supports existing businesses as they grow, and drives job creation in Lyon County. Executive Director Casey Woods and Fab Lab Manager Jeremy Wharton gave us a tour of their makerspace, which has a variety of 3D printers and a CNC mill. We discussed several ongoing projects and discussed how the grant program can support founders in the region.
After the tour, Groover Labs co-founder Tracy Hoover gave a presentation to the group, where she talked about ACCEL-KS at Groover Labs grant program, and outlining how we can collaborate with Emporia Main Street to identify entrepreneurs in Lyon County. Members of the press were on hand, including from the Emporia Gazette and local radio station KVOE.
We’ve included the article and radio news story below. To support local journalism, we’ve only included the first few paragraphs along with a link to the Gazette’s and KVOE’s websites, where you can read the the full stories.
Emporia Main Street partners with Groover Labs for rural innovation grants
By Amanda Davis amanda@emporia.com
Sep 9, 2025
A new avenue of rural-specific funding will soon be available to local entrepreneurs.
Emporia Main Street announced Tuesday afternoon that they will be partnering with Groover Labs, a Wichita-based community innovation nonprofit, to provide funding and support for innovators with tech-startup ideas in the local area.
Groover Labs, co-founded by Tracy Hoover and Curt Gridley, was awarded a $400,000 ACCEL-KS grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation. Groover Labs is seeking to give out at least 32 grants, ranging from $5,000 to $25,000, to strong prototypes, scalable ideas, or hardware and software development in Kansas.
Emporia Main Street is one of four rural partners with Groover Labs that is set to aid in distributing funds to rural innovators. Casey Woods, Emporia Main Street Director, said that partnership serves to fill gaps in resources for both Groover Labs and Emporia Main Street.
Emporia Main Street, local entrepreneurs and state maker spaces set to benefit from new ACCEL-KS grant funding being made available by Groover Labs of Wichita
Sep 9, 2025
A new grant program originating in Wichita is providing an opportunity for innovation for both local entrepreneurs and state maker spaces.
Tuesday, Emporia Main Street invited local media to a presentation by Groover Labs of Wichita detailing a new grant program that was made possible by a $400,000 allocation from the Kansas Department of Commerce as part of the KDOC Accelerating Concepts to Commercialization in Kansas (ACCEL-KS) proof-of-concept program. The ACCEL grants will be made available to entrepreneurs across the state, with a minimum of $5,000 to a maximum of $25,000 available.
Groover Co-Founder Tracy Hoover says the goal of the grant program is to help rural developers create or enhance scalable products.
