Excoastal #15
Four fundraises + an IPO for Colorado companies, d2c in Louisville, agtech in Iowa, 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.
This newsletter is the collision of my Chicago/Michigan roots and a love of all things startups and venture capital. It’s inspired by Brendan Boken’s excellent newsletter The Strand, which covers the thriving tech scene in LA. The catalyst for its creation was VC University Live at the University of Michigan, where one of the focuses of the conversation was on building stronger startup communities in the Midwest. From what I’ve seen demonstrated by the #givefirst ethos in Boulder, and from what I’ve observed across other tech hubs, strong communities are often the products of individuals who care enough to invest not just resources, but time and energy. Bringing it home, I wanted to do something to contribute to the ecosystems between the coasts, Excoastal is the start.
You can connect with me on Twitter @evanjlonergan, on Medium, and send deals/jobs/intel to evanlon92@gmail.com.
Whats New
Excoastal Stats 📊
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Last Week’s Open Rate: 67% 📈
Last Week’s Views: 155 📈
I want to try something new with this section, so here we go:
Excoastal News Roundup
Kansas City-based Replica spins out of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs.
Uber looks to increase headcount in Chicago, making the city home to its second largest satellite office.
John Deere opens a new R&D center in Iowa to focus on its internal agtech systems.
Payments infrastructure company Finix plans to expand their offerings from a group out of their Cincinnati office.
Denver ranks highly for small-business formation.
Now to the good stuff…
Venture Capital Deals
Rivian, a Plymouth, Michigan-based electric adventure vehicle startup focused on SUVs and pickup trucks, raised $350 million from Cox Automotive (parent co of Autotrader, KBB, and others). This brings Rivian’s 2019 fundraising total to more than $1.5 billion dollars after previous investments by Amazon and Ford.
Columbus, Ohio-based Root Insurance, an auto insurance startup, officially announced that it has raised $350 million at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation co-led by Coatue Management and DST. I previously mentioned this round in Excoastal Issue 12.
Zestful, a Denver-based company enabling employers to offer a customizable employee perk program, raised $5 million in seed funding. Thrive Capital led, and was joined by investors including Box Group, Y Combinator, Matchstick Ventures, Third Kind Capital, and Shrug Capital. Check them out.
Engage Mobilize, a Denver-based cloud-based digital field management, procurement, and electronic ticketing platform built for the oil and gas industry, raised Series A funding of an undisclosed amount. Cottonwood Venture Partners led the round. Term Sheet
Flatfile, a Denver-based startup providing a platform to import data from any web application, raised $2 million in pre-seed funding led by Afore Capital.
InDevR Inc, a Boulder, CO-based biotechnology company, raised $7 million in Series A funding, from Adjuvant Capital. Term Sheet
Columbus, OH-based Tnedicca, a location-based traffic crash intelligence and predictive analytics platform that enables accurate auto insurance pricing, raised $750k in funding, led by Pixel Perfect Ventures.
Louisville, KY-based Truman’s, a d2c cleaning products company, raised $5 million in seed funding from Henkel, Uncommon Denominator, Starting Line (shout out to Ezra) and BFG Partners.
Forager, a Chicago-based startup focused on cross-border logistics, raised $3.25 million in seed funding. Chicago Ventures led the round. Term Sheet
ProGlove, an industrial wearables startup with offices in Germany and Chicago, raised $40 million from Summit Partners. Axios
Ames, Iowa based agtech company Gross-Wen Technologies has raised $1.25 million dollars.
Private Equity Deals
JMC Capital Partners acquired PRO-VISION, a Grand Rapids, MI-based provider of rugged rear vision and video recording systems. Term Sheet
Luminate Capital Partners made an investment in MSI Data, a Mequon, WI-based provider of field service management software. Term Sheet
IPOs
Denver-based Ping Identity, a digital authentication and security company, plans to raise $187 million in an IPO of 12.5 million shares priced within a $14 to $16 range.
New Funds
McRock Capital, a Toronto-based IoT VC firm, held a C$80 million first close on its C$100 million second fund. LPs include Cisco, Shell, BDC Capital, Export Development Canada, Alberta Enterprise Corp., and HarbourVest. Axios
On the Move
Chicago-based VC Jump Capital promoted Yelena Shkolnik to principal.
What I’m Reading
How a Manhattan Scion Built a Rural Empire
Want to Do Business in Silicon Valley? Better Act Nice
Use a Value Theory Approach to TAM Sizing to Avoid False Negatives
Startup/VC Twitter
Podcast Addiction
Zack Kanter - All Things Business - Invest Like the Best (Zach is the founder of Stedi, on of the companies in my fantasy portfolio. Aside from founding Boulder-based Stedi, he’s an impressive thinker and writer, and worth a follow if you’re on Twitter.)
Culture Break
📚Read- I’ve finally gotten around to getting a copy of Pioneering Portfolio Management, and I'm digging in between my case books. (See also: How David Swensen Made Yale Fabulously Rich)
🎬Watch- The Weekly on Hulu, Episode 12, “The Blueprint” (I’m specifically highlighting an individual episode this week, as this particular subject has become distorted by the popular narrative).
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- What College Admissions Offices Really Want
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