Excoastal Issue 59
A lighter week of fundraising news...
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: 44% 📉
Last Week’s Views: 186 📉
ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago
PhotoniCare, a provider of a diagnostic imaging tool for the middle ear, raised $5.2 million in Series A funding. i2E Management Company led the round and was joined by investors including OSF Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Dreampact Ventures.
Zero Hash, which offers a post-trade settlement utility to bridge the fragmented market of execution platforms, raised $4.5 million in Series C financing from Bain Capital, Monday Capital, tastytrade, and others.
CircleIt, the maker of a virtual time capsule allowing families to share & store memories, raised a $1 million dollar seed round.
📍 Indiana
Bloomington-based Stagetime, an online network where artists, artistic administrators, and agents can grow as professionals, raised $210k from Flywheel Fund and the IU Angel Network.
📍 Wisconsin
SHINE Medical Technologies, a Janesville-based medical isotopes producer, raised $80 million in Series C funding. Fidelity Management and Research Company led the round.
📍 Pittsburgh
Aspinity, a maker of low-power analog machine learning processors, raised $5.3 million in Series A funding. Anzu Partners led and was joined by investors including Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Birchmere Ventures, Mountain State Capital, and Riverfront Ventures.
📍 Denver/Boulder
Honcho, a Denver-based maker of governance software, raised $4 million in Series A funding. FINTOP Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Peter Thiel.
📍 Silicon Slopes
Sarcos Robotics, a Salt Lake City-based maker of robots for productivity and safety, raised $40 million in Series C funding. Rotor Capital led the round. The company plans to use the funding to commercially produce its battery-powered robot, which is designed to lift up to 200 pounds. Term Sheet
Private Equity Deals
Thoma Bravo completed its previously-announced purchase of FoundationSoftware, a Strongsville, Ohio-based provider of construction accounting and payroll software.
Wind Point Partners acquired RTIC, a Houston-based direct-to-consumer seller of coolers and other outdoor products.
Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe hired Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse to find a buyer for Clearwater Analysis, a Boise, Idaho-based automated data aggregation and reporting solution for investment portfolios, per PE Hub.
M&A
A consortium led by Clayton Dubilier & Rice agreed to acquire Epicor Software, an Austin, Texas-based software maker, for $4.7 billion, including debt.
ECI Software Solutions acquired ThermoGRID, a Dubuque, Iowa-based solution for small to medium residential service companies.
New Funds
S2G Ventures, a Chicago-based firm focused on food and agriculture, human health, and the environment, has established a new oceans and seafood investment team with commitments of up to $100 million.
Chicago-based GTCR has set a $6.75 billion target for its newest buyout fund, Bloomberg reports.
Ubiquity Partners has set a $250 million fundraising goal for its first flagship private equity vehicle, according to an SEC filing. The Kansas-based firm invests in communications infrastructure across the US.
Others
Bumble, the dating app where women make the first move, is considering an entrance into the public markets. The Austin-based company is in early preparations for an initial public offering in the first half of next year at a target valuation of between $6 billion and $8 billion.
What I’m Reading
How to Define Your Product Strategy
An IPO expert bats back at the narrative that traditional IPOs are for ‘morons’
Startup/VC Twitter
Podcast Addiction
Einar Vollset of TinySeed // lessons from the first cohort of the accelerator for bootstrappers - Upside FM
Culture Break
📚Read- 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War by Andrew Nagorski
🎬Watch- The Great on Hulu (strongly recommend this one)
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- College is Everywhere Now
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