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.
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I hope everyone had a restive and enjoyable holiday, I know I was glad to have some time off! ! Now it its on to the new year and the new decade, which is beginning much the same as the last one left off- more fundraising from excoastal companies and funds alike. I thought, given that recommendations have been a part of Excoastal since day one, I’d share some favorites from the past year. Here they are:
Movie
Parasite- this Korean language thriller from director Bong Joon-ho was the standout film for me this year. It genre bending thriller that combines humor, tension, warmth, and desperation. It is the right movie for the moment with its glaring treatment of greed and class disparities. Honorable mention: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Book
Catch and Kill- a brilliant and suspenseful account of Ronan Farrow’s reporting on allegations against Harvey Weinstein and others. Not since reading Bad Blood last year have I been so captivated by a reporters dogged work in uncovering so much shocking information. The book of course would not exist without the women who spoke up, and thus really it is the triumph of the courage of many that this story is told. Honorable mention: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.
ICYMI: the updated the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Now to the good stuff…
Venture Capital Deals
Chicago-based Clearcover, which operates an insur-tech platform for drivers to manage auto insurance, raised $43 million in Series B funding. The round was led by OMERS Ventures, and was joined by American Family Ventures, Cox Enterprises, and IA Capital Group.
Practifi, a Chicago-based business management platform for financial advisors, raised $16.3 million in Series B funding. Updata Partners led, and was joined by return backer Equity Venture Partners. Axios
Aver, a Columbus, Ohio-based provider of bundled healthcare payment and value-based solutions, raised $27 million in Series C funding. Investors include Cox Enterprises and return backers Drive Capital, Heritage Group, Hearst Ventures and NCT Ventures.
Ripple Science, an Ann Arbor-based developer of web-based software for health sciences, raised $2.5 million in funding. Investors include Dundee VC, Mercury Fund, SpringTime Ventures, Red Cedar Ventures, and M25, Revolution’s Rise to the Rest Seed Fund.
TeleVet, an online platform that connects veterinary clinics with existing clients, raised $2 million in seed financing. Dundee Venture Capital and the Mercury Fund co-led the round, and were joined by GAN Ventures.
Docket, an Indianapolis-based software-as-a-service platform for managing intelligent meetings, raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Allos Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including High Alpha Capital, Elevate Ventures and Simon Equity Partners.
Virtual Incision, a Lincoln, NE-based developer of miniaturized surgical robots, raised $20 million in Series B funding. Return backer Bluestem Capital led, and was joined by PrairieGold Venture Partners and Genesis Innovation Group. Axios
Virtual Incision Corporation, a Sioux Falls, SD-based medical device company, raised $20 million in a Series B+ funding. Bluestem Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including PrairieGold Venture Partners and Genesis Innovation Group. Term Sheet
Deep Genomics, a Toronto-based developer of drugs for rare genetic diseases, raised C$40 million in Series B funding. Future Ventures led, and was joined by Amplitude Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Magnetic Ventures, and True Ventures. Axios
TaxBit, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based cryptocurrency tax automation platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. Investors include TTV Capital, Valar Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, Collaborative Fund, Winklevoss Capital, Global Founders Capital, Table Management, and Album VC. Term Sheet
Private Equity Deals
Long Ridge Equity Partners led an acquisition of Chicago-baed NinjaTrader, a provider of trading software and brokerage services with participation from DRW Venture Capital.
M&A
ADT acquired Defenders, an Indianapolis-based provider of residential security services, for around $381 million. Axios
Provation Medical, a Minneapolis-based portfolio company of Clearlake Capital, acquired MD-Reports, which provides electronic medical records and practice management software.
Bullhorn acquired Herefish, a St. Louis-based provider of automation solutions for staffing firms. Term Sheet
New Funds
J.D. Vance has launched a new Midwest-focused VC firm called Narya Capital and raised $93 million for its debut fund, which is targeting a total of $125 million. Based in Cincinnati, the funds backers include Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Eric Schmidt, and Scott Dorsey.
Ohio-based Goodyear, the formidable tire and rubber brand, is entering the corporate venture-capital field with Goodyear Ventures, a new $100 million fund focused on mobility startups.
Chicago-based Energy Capital Ventures has launched as a firm focused on the power and utility industry.
Royal Street Ventures, a Kansas City-based seed-stage firm, raised $16.4 million for its third fund, per an SEC filing.
Vistria Group, a Chicago-based mid-market private equity firm, raised $1.1 billion for its third fund. Axios
IPOs
No notable tech IPOs this week.
What I’m Reading
The Annual View 2019 - Part II: Predictions
The 84 Biggest Flops, Fails, and Dead Dreams of the Decade in Tech
Getting Schooled – Lessons from an Adjunct
What 15 Years of Y Combinator Investments Can Teach Us About Startups
Startup/VC Twitter
(Thread 👇🏼)
Podcast Addiction
Chad Byers, Susa Ventures - Origins
Culture Break
📚Read- The Crowded Hour: : Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century by Clay Risen
🎬Watch- Parasite
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- Hype House and the Los Angeles TikTok Mansion Gold Rush and Heston Blumenthal Returns To The Source
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