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.
Whats New
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Merry Christmas from Excoastal,
and happy holidays to you and yours. See you back here in 2020! The newsletter will be off until the new year, while I enjoy some time off here in Michigan with the family. In the meantime, Excoastal funding is going on with a bang. Check out the details below.
Excoastal News Roundup
Arthur Ventures gets a fresh capital infusion.
Chicago’s sprout social went public raising around $150 million.
Wichita continues to evolve as a tech hub.
A resource: the updated the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Now to the good stuff…
Venture Capital Deals
Bright Health, a Minneapolis-based health insurer, raised $635 million in funding. NEA led the round, and was joined by investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Cross Creek Advisors, Declaration Partners, Flare Capital Partners, Greenspring Associates, Meritech Capital, Redpoint Ventures and Town Hall Ventures.
Vndly has raised a $35 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, bringing the Cincinnati-based company's total funding to nearly $50 million. Vndly develops a platform used by other businesses to manage talent acquisition, training, off-boarding and other personnel tasks.
VNDLY, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based cloud platform for gig economy work management, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led, joined by investors including Battery Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, EPIC Ventures, Bowery Capital, the Cintrifuse Syndicate Fund, and ServiceNow.
Bushel, a Fargo, ND-based provider of software for the grain industry, raised $19.5 million in Series B funding. Continental Grain Co. led, and was joined by Lewis & Clark AgriFood and Germin8 Ventures. Axios
LogicGate, a Chicago-based agile process automation platform, raised $25 million in combined debt and equity funding. Jump Capital and High Alpha Capital co-led the round, and was joined by Greenspring Associates and Silicon Valley Bank.
Gecko Robotics, a Pittsburgh-based maker of robots used to inspect industrial infrastructure assets and software designed to predict when and where problems will occur, raised $40 million in funding. Drive Capital led the round with participation from existing investors Founders Fund, Next47 and Y Combinator.
Summersalt, a St. Louis-based direct-to-consumer swimwear company, raised $17.3 million led by Mercato Partners.
ArcherDX, a Boulder, CO-based personalized genomic medicine startup, raised $55 million in Series C funding. Perceptive Advisors led, and was joined by Redmile Group, Soleus Capital, Driehaus Capital Management, ArrowMark Partners and return backers Sands Capital, Longwood Fund, PBM Capital, and Boulder Ventures. Axios
Pronto, a Salt Lake City-based engagement platform that connects individuals via chat and video messaging, raised $7.5 million in Series B funding. Origin Ventures led, joined by Signal Peak Ventures.
Private Equity Deals
Lovell Minnick Partners invested in Fortis, a Novi, MI-based provider of payments and merchant solutions to businesses and software developers. Axios
Great Hill Partners has agreed to acquire Toronto-based VersaPay, a provider of cloud-based payment services.
Thompson Street Capital Partners invested in Data Dimensions, a Janesville, WI-based provider of business process automation solutions.
M&A
Apax Partners agreed to acquire Coalfire, a Westminster, CO-based provider of information technology audit and compliance services, from The Carlyle Group and The Chertoff Group. Term Sheet
Episerver, which is backed by Insight Partners, has acquired Insite Software, a Minneapolis-based provider of digital commerce solutions for manufacturers and distributors.
Accenture (NYSE: ACN) agreed to buy Clarity Insights, a Chicago-based data science consultancy, from Riordan Lewis & Haden. Axios
New Funds
Fargo and Minneapolis-based Arthur Ventures has raised $155 million in new capital that will spread across a new core fund and an opportunity fund. The firm will continue to invest in B2B software companies outside of Silicon Valley.
Rev1 Ventures, a Columbus-based venture firm, has raised a new $15 million fund to invest in medical and biotech startups.
Minneapolis-based Värde Partners has raised $2.47 billion for its 13th flagship fund, exceeding the original $2 billion target.
IPOs
No notable tech IPOs this week.
What I’m Reading
Why B2B Marketplaces Are Red-Hot
The Contradictory Traits of Successful Founders
How SaaS founders can create category leadership.
Startup/VC Twitter
Podcast Addiction
Neal Bloom of Fresh Brewed Tech - Upside FM
Culture Break
📚Read- Catch and Kill
🎬Watch- Knives Out (just saw this today, unexpectedly enjoyable. Definitively recommend for a holiday movie outing).
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- Is Nuclear Power Worth the Risk?
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