A Big Week of Fundraising Between the Coasts
Plus a debut seed fund in Chicago and more.
Welcome to Excoastal, a newsletter covering deals, startups, venture capital, and more from Chicago to Boulder, Detroit to Columbus, and beyond. I’m Evan Lonergan, a native Midwesterner.
You can connect with me on Twitter @evanjlonergan, on Medium, and send deals/jobs/intel to evanlon92@gmail.com
What’s New
Excoastal Stats 📊
Last Week’s Open Rate: 41%
Last Week’s Views: 176
ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago
Tempus, a Chicago-based company applying artificial intelligence to precision medicine, raised $200 million in funding valuing it at $8.1 billion. Investors included Baillie Gifford, Franklin Templeton, Google, Novo Holdings, and T. Rowe Price. Term Sheet
CarDr.com, a Chicago-based vehicle health info startup, raised $5 million from Red Fort Capital.
Flex Lighting, a Chicago-based provider of thin front-light tech, raised $9 million led by Anzu Partners.
Blueprint, a Chicago-based software company for mental health clinicians, raised $3.4 million in seed funding. Bonfire Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Lightbank. Term Sheet
📍 Indianapolis
Scale Computing, an edge computing company, raised $30 million in new funding. Elevate Ventures led.
📍 Ohio
Columbus-based battleface, a travel insurance startup, raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Drive Capital.
Basking Bioscience, a Columbus-based developer of treatments for acute ischemic strokes, raised $5.3 million in seed funding from Rev1 Ventures, Broadview Ventures, and Viva BioInnovator.
📍 Wisconsin
Madison-based Fetch Rewards, developer of a consumer-loyalty and retail-rewards app, has raised an $80 million Series C led by Iconiq Growth. DST Global, Greycroft, and E.ventures also participated.
📍 Pittsburgh
Iralogix, a provider of white-label IRA products, raised $7.5 million in Series B funding. Great North Labs led, and was joined by Trog Hawley Capital, Riverfront Ventures, and Circadian Ventures. Axios
Metafy, a platform for one-on-one coaching from champion-level gamers, raised $3 million in seed funding. Forerunner Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Tekton Ventures and M25. Term Sheet
📍Chattanooga
Branch Technology, a construction-scale 3D printing company, raised $11 million in funding. EquipmentShare led the round and was joined by investors including Brick & Mortar Ventures and Chattanooga Renaissance Fund.
📍 Boulder/Denver
Moov, a Colorado-based maker of banking infrastructure, raised $27 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.
📍 Texas
Houston-based NOW Insurance, an insurance platform for business owners and professionals, raised $1.3 million in additional seed funding led by The MFO Group.
📍 Montana
Neuro-ID, a Whitefish, Mt.-based behavior analytics company seeking to detect fraud, raised $7 million in Series A funding. Fin VC and TTV Capital led the round and were joined by investors including Canapi Ventures. Term Sheet
📍 New Mexico
UbiQD, a Los Alamos-based materials company serving agriculture, clean energy, and security markets raised $7 million in Series A funding. Scout Ventures and Keiretsu Forum led and were joined by investors including Sun Mountain Capital, Epic Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, and Arcview Collective Fund.
Private Equity Deals
Quad-C Management agreed to buy Learners Edge, an Eagan, Minnesota-based provider of online professional development courses, from L Squared Capital Partners.
Thoma Bravo invested in Venafi, a SLC-based provider of network security, valuing the company at $1.2 billion.
Main Post Partners invested in Duke Cannon, a Minneapolis-based men’s grooming company.
New Capital Partners invested in Healthfuse, a Milwaukee-based healthcare vendor management company.
M&A
Next Insurance acquired Juniper Labs, a Denver-based underwriting technology firm focused on small businesses.
Thumbtack acquired Setter, a Toronto-based home management platform backed by investors including Sequoia and NFX. Term Sheet
Fortinet acquired Panopta, a Chicago-based cloud and hybrid infrastructure monitoring platform, from Five Elms Capital.
New Funds
Motivate Ventures of Chicago raised $43 million for its debut seed fund.
Rally Ventures, a Menlo Park and Minneapolis-based VC firm, raised $250 million for its fourth fund.
What I’m Reading
Etsy Was a Twee Culture Punchline. Now It’s a Wall Street Darling.
How to Leverage Micro VC Funds to Build an Angel Portfolio
Individuals or Teams: Who’s the Better Customer for SaaS Products?
2020 Chicago VC Ecosystem Report
Startup/VC Twitter
Thread 👇🏼
Podcast Addiction
Culture Break
📚Read- A Promised Land by Barack Obama
🎬Watch- The Undoing on HBO
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- The Ballad of Ron and Dorinda
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