An App for Walk and Talk Meetings in Chicago...
Plus supply chain software in Chattanooga and a flurry of deals in Texas.
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: 31%
Last Week’s Views: 176
📍 Some more personal news:
As of a few days ago, I am back in Chicago! I’ll be here all summer so if you’d like to connect about startups, entrepreneurship, or anything else let me know. I would love to grow my network in the city after a few years away.
ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago
Amount, a technology provider for financial institutions, raised $100 million in Series D funding. Investors included WestCap,Hanaco Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Invus Group, and Barclays US. Term Sheet
Spot Meetings, an app for walk-and-talk meetings, raised $5 million in seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins.
📍 Pittsburgh
DeltaTrainer, a remote personal training company, which uses machine learning to estimate strength and interpret data for trainers, raised $3.3 million in a seed round. TenOneTen Ventures led the financing.
📍 Tennessee
Chattanooga-based supply chain data startup FreightWaves has raised $16 million in a round of funding led by Triangle Peak Partners.
📍 St. Louis
Adalo, developer of a no-code app builder platform, raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Tiger Global.
📍 Denver/Boulder
Assignar, a Denver-based construction ops platform, raised $20 million in Series B funding. Fifth Wall led and was joined by Tola Capital and Ironspring Ventures.
Boulder-based Cloud Campaign, an operating system for marketing agencies and freelancers, raised $5 million in Series A funding. Oregon Venture Fund and Access Venture Partnersled the round.
📍 Silicon Slopes
Blackrock Neurotech, a Salt Lake City-based maker of a brain-control product in the same space as Neuralink, raised $10 million in funding. re.Mind Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Peter Thiel, Tim Sievers, and Sorenson Impact’s University Venture Fund II. Term Sheet
📍 Texas
Dallas-based Rhithm, a startup focused on mental health and social-emotional wellbeing, raised $4 million in seed funding. Reach Capital led the round and was joined by JF Ventures, Red House Education, and Edovate Capital.
Wheel, an Austin-based virtual healthcare recruiting platform, raised $50 million in Series B funding. Lightspeed Ventures led, joined by Future Shape, CRV, Silverton Partners, Tusk Venture Partners, and JPMorgan.
Data.World, an Austin-based data catalog startup, raised $11 million led by Dutch chemical company Vopal.
Austin-based Maven, a platform for cohort-based courses, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Workrise, an Austin-based workforce management platform, raised $300 million in Series E funding. Baillie Gifford led, joined by Franklin Templeton, Founders Fund, Bedrock Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Moore Strategic Ventures, 137 Ventures, and Brookfield Growth Partners. The deal values the company at $2.9 billion.
Private Equity Deals
The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board has purchased Austin-based Mitratech, a legal and risk management software provider from TA Associates at an enterprise value of $1.55 billion.
New Funds
7wire Ventures, a Chicago-based VC firm focused on digital health startups, raised $150 million for its second fund.
Revival Healthcare Capital, an Austin-based private equity firm, closed a second fund with $500 million.
What I’m Reading
Firehose #190: 🎸 Creator equity. 🎸
Families Make Corporate VC Investments Better, Research Shows
As Venture Dollars Grow, Steve Case Sees A Larger Landscape For Entrepreneurs
Startup/VC Twitter
Podcast Addiction
Culture Break
📚Read- My Life by Anton Chekhov
🎬Watch- Nothing new here as I’ve been finishing up finals and traveling up to Chicago.
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- The Anxiety of Influencers
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