UMI’s Success Stories

Here are some of the Kansas City-area small businesses who have partnered with Urban Market Investments to become stronger companies, employers, and economic forces in their communities. We are proud to support their growth and entrepreneurship.

 1st Priority Heating & Cooling and Construction

1st Priority Heating & Cooling and Construction is a full-service HVAC company led by Jill Arnold and Tim Arnold. Jill handles the business while Tim handles the client calls.

Serving both residential and commercial customers in Clay County, 1st Priority is truly a small, family-run business. However, 1st Priority wasn’t enough of a priority for commercial lenders to take much of a chance on.

“In the past, we’ve tried getting loans from ‘traditional banks’ whom we’ve had relationships with and were immediately denied,” Jill and Chris said. With their UMI support, they’ve been able to keep their employees on the payroll until they can get their first couple of draws from a yearlong job.

They’ve also been able to bid on more jobs to build their pipeline of deals, including winning one recently for $125,000. “With the help of UMI we have been able to break barriers that we weren’t able to get through in the past. We look forward to continuing a relationship with UMI while building our company at the same time,” they said.

Love Is Key

Love Is Key-LIK Food & Dessert Innovation serves up gourmet soul food and brunch “that touches the heart” through a catering company (voted Kansas City’s favorite caterer!), restaurant and food trailer that are organic and vegetarian friendly. It’s gained a beloved reputation for its desserts, chicken & waffles, and loving, homey atmosphere.

Tameisha Martin founded the company in honor of her grandmother Daisy, who never realized her dream of owning her own restaurant, and mother Tangela, who was renowned for baking for her family and community.

Hospitality and food service is inherently a challenging industry—even with the support of banks. With UMI’s investment, Tameisha has been able to hire five new employees, and remodel the food trailer inside out, from new equipment to eye-catching branding. With this increased capacity, Love Is Key has been able to secure two new long-term catering contracts, and the company is on track to deliver a six-figure increase in revenue in 2024.

Civic Saint

Originally established as a lifestyle/clothing brand in 2020, Civic Saint reinvented itself as a manufacturer of affordable, sustainable, ecologically-friendly housing to help solve the racial wealth gap, and diversify formerly redlined neighborhoods.

Civic Saint’s homes are built with compressed earthen blocks (CEBs), an ancient way homes were created dating back to 8700 BCE—but updated for the 21st century via prefabricated manufacturing and technology. Civic Saint’s CEBs are composed of a 90-10 nontoxic mix of soil/cement and water. Hydraulically compressed and cured, these bricks are twice as strong as regular concrete blocks, as well as being fireproof, bulletproof and insect-proof. Just as important, a CEB home can be purchased for as little as $50,000.

“Since receiving investment from Urban Market Investments, Civic Saint has made important achievements towards its goal to sustainably create artful, affordable housing using compressed earthen blocks,” according to founder Godfrey Riddle.

Godfrey, who’s been featured on Peacock TV’s “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” series. has used UMI’s funding in part to set up a factory, hire part-time employees at $24 an hour, and finance their first full home build.

Sweet Peaches Cobblers, LLC

Deneisha Jones’ peach and apple cobblers were always hits at her family’s functions—and when they posted her creations on their social media feeds, demand was generated. And the idea for a business she and her husband Willie could start was born!

Fast forward to today: Sweet Peaches’ cobblers and cookies are carried in supermarkets in nine states, and their cobbler fillings are shipped nationwide. But despite that growth, Deneisha and Willie were limited in what they could do to build up their business.

With their investment from UMI, Sweet Peaches has been able to purchase a fully-equipped mobile trailer, customized with their brand, and put a downpayment on a pickup truck to haul it.

“Making these purchases have allowed us to increase our retail sales by conducting in-store promotions where we sell our products. Our trailer is a rolling advertisement for our company! We are planning to hire staff for the trailer and increase our current staff hours,” Deneisha says. “We are excited for what’s to come!”

Best of all: she says these improvements put the company on track to double their projected annual revenue in 2025!