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
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ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
A virtual summit on midwest tech…
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago
Food delivery startup Chowbus, which focuses on restaurants that do not typically work with other third-party delivery apps, raised $33 million in a Series A round. Altos Ventures and Left Lane Capital led, joined by Hyde Park Angels, Fika Ventures, FJ Labs, and Silicon Valley Bank. The new funding will be used to expand the company’s ability to connect diners with mom-and-pop restaurants and stores offering authentic Asian cuisine.
Enduvo, a no-code AR/VR platform, raised $4 million in seed funding. Math Venture Partners led, joined by UL Ventures.
TeleTeachers, a remote special education startup, raised $2.7 million in a round of Series A funding.
📍 Columbus (Flavortown?)
Forge Biologics, a developer of viral vector gene therapy for patients with rare diseases, has closed a $40 million Series A led by Xontogeny, with support from Drive Capital. Xontogeny CEO Chris Garabedian will join the company’s board.
Branch a tech-based home, auto, and renters insurance platform has raised $24 million in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Greycroft and HSCM Bermuda, with participation from SignalFire, SCOR Global P&C, Elefund, Foundation Capital, and support from existing backers American Family Ventures and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Fund.
📍 St. Louis
Readout Health, a digital metabolic biomarker startup, raised $2.2 million in seed funding led by iSelect Funds.
📍 Boulder/Denver
Propeller, a Denver-based developer of 3D mapping and worksite analytics hardware and software, raised $18 million in Series B funding co-led by Blackbird and Costanoa Ventures.
Englewood, Colorado-based Aircraft manufacturer Bye Aerospace closed on a $10 million financing round consisting of a $5 million investment from an unnamed venture capital group earlier this year and an additional $5 million raised earlier this week. The funding will be used to begin work on the company’s first “production-conforming” fully electric aircraft.
📍 Austin
Austin-based insurtech startup The Helper Bees, which matches seniors who need home care services with qualified caregivers, has raised $6 million in a Series A round. Silverton Partners led the financing and was joined by investors including Austin Impact Capital, and Techstars.
Episode Six, an Austin-based financial technology provider, raised $7 million in Series A funding. HSBC led the round and was joined by investors including Mastercard and SBI Investment Co. Term Sheet
📍 Dallas
Mercado, a provider of international trade SaaS, raised $2.5 million. Ironspring Ventures led, joined by Supply Chain Ventures, LiveOak Venture Partners, Schematic Ventures, Story Ventures, and Amplifier.
Private Equity Deals
Leonard Green & Partners agreed to buy a 50% stake in WellSky, an Overland Park, Kansas-based post-acute care software provider, from TPG Capital at an enterprise value north of $3 billion. Axios
The Riverside Company made an investment in Buildout, a Chicago-based commercial real estate brokerage software maker.
M&A
Minneapolis-based Perforce Software acquired Methodics, a San Francisco-based provider of enterprise IP lifecycle management and traceability solutions.
Curaleaf completed its purchase of Grassroots, a Deerfield, IL-based cannabis company.
New Funds
Range Ventures, a Colorado-based early-stage VC firm led by Adam Burrows (ex-Guild Education, ex-HomeAdvisor) and Chris Erickson (ex-Apartment List), secured $18 million so far for its debut fund, per an SEC filing.
What I’m Reading
Let me know how I can be helpful ;)
‘A lack of marketing flywheel’: BigCommerce’s S-1, annotated
A Master Class In Venture Capital with Drive Capital's Chris Olsen (This is actually a watch)
Startup/VC Twitter
Podcast Addiction
GP and LP Alignment, Challenges for Emerging Fund Managers, and How the Explosion in Seed Fund Volume Plays Out - Full Ratchet
Culture Break
📚Read- Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
🎬Watch- Skate Kitchen on Hulu
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- America’s Looming Primary-Care Crisis and As the Federal Eviction Moratorium Expires, Millions of Americans Face Disaster
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