Greeting Pioneers,

Welcome to 2026.

First off, a look back at 2025: It was amazing. The first full year of KYX. We ended it on a high note w/ The LOUIES and the finale of Velocity. Thank you all for your support and participation throughout last year. We built something really special together.

2026 is a new year with the same mission, accelerate Seed-stage companies through to Series-A-stage in Louisville. While we focused heavily on identifying those companies last year, the focus this year is on accelerating them.

Lock-in Mode Activated

Our greatest strength at KYX is our ability to execute. We’re going to double down on this and put all our energy back into executing on startups and ideas. We’ll be leading by example; building great companies that show rather than tell.

We already have a great cohort of startups and operators at Cinderblock who we believe can break through major product and revenue milestones this year. We’ll be focusing our efforts on making these companies successful while more passively continuing support for earlier stage companies.

With that as our north star, our approach is:

Lead: Build our own great startups.
Recruit: Bring more startups to Louisville.
Develop: Help those startups succeed (Velocity).
Support: Bring those startups and founders together (Fire & Ice, VCN, Build Night).
Celebrate: Celebrate success of startups (The LOUIES).

While we’re laser-focused on our own startups, we’ll be reducing the breadth of events we offer this year, starting with HackKentucky. We’ll be skipping it in 2026. We love the event and look forward to resuming HackKentucky in future years when we have more Series A-ready startups who can leverage it to test and hire talent.

More to come on what new programming you can expect instead (Saturday Startup Club, an import program…) in next week’s newsletter.

Changes To The Distill

With our renewed focus, you can expect some changes to The Distill. Companies at The Block are going to be building in public this year - and we’ll be sharing the triumphs and failures with you right here every week. Watch startups set and iterate towards ambitious goals, find out where you can help, and learn from the founders currently in the arena.

Note’s on The Distill’s co-EICs: Jack Crowdis & Rachel Edenfield

Jack runs the newsletter, helps run KYX. He’s a career startup kid, past founder, and current operator. Weekly contributor. Always editor.

Rachel’s the Founder/CEO of venture-backed Swell, and a driver of KYX. Routinely delivers the city’s sharpest long-form startup advice. Always re-edits Jack’s edits (including this bio).

Know someone who should read this? Forward it, or send them this link.

That’s a wrap 🎬
Keep showing up 👊 
Keep shipping 🚢 
Peace, Pioneers ✌️