Excoastal Issue 62

Cloud software for manufacturers, digital retirement planning, book clubs, and more...

Sep 27, 2020

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: 35%
Last Week’s Views: 161

ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:

Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels

Sponsored Content From Our Friends at Enterprise Rising Conference 2020 ONLINE:
100% startups. 100% Midwest. 100% SaaS. And this year 100% online too.
If you're an entrepreneur, come learn from a speaker roster that will be dropping non-stop tactics with no BS.
If you're an investor come to the conference where you will find more startups with real traction than anywhere else in the Midwest.
If you're a supporter of startups, come build relationships with an amazing community of startup people.
Check out the event site for details and use discount code: excoastal for 20% off as many tickets as you need.

Venture Capital Deals

📍 Chicago

NextCapital, a Chicago-based digital service for retirement planning, has raised $30 million in Series D funding led by FP Credit, with Oak HC/FT and IA Capital Group also participating.

📍 Ohio

Within3, the creator of a virtual communication and collaboration platform used by pharmaceutical and life sciences companies raised $100 million. The round was led by Insight Partners, with Silversmith Capital Partners also participating. According to The Wall Street Journal, this funding is the company's first major institutional financing since its founding in 2008.

📍 Minneapolis

Bright Health, a company offering health plan products and clinical care delivery services, has raised $500 million in Series E funding from T. Rowe Price, Tiger Global, NEA, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Greenspring Associates.

Fulcrum, a platform that lets manufacturers manage their operations in the cloud in an intuitive and open way, has raised $3.1 million in seed funding. Motivate Venture Capital led and was joined by Battery Ventures, Schematic Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Bread & Butter Ventures, VitalizeVC (fka IrishAngels), Social Starts, and SpringTime Ventures.

📍 Pittsburgh

RoadRunner Recycling, a Pittsburgh-based provider of waste management and recycling solutions, raised $10 million in Series C funding from Avery Dennison and Valo Ventures.

📍 Silicon Slopes

BookClub, a Salt Lake City-based platform for author-led book clubs, raised $6 million in seed funding. Maveron led, and was joined by GSV Ventures, Signal Peak Ventures, and Pelion Venture Partners. Axios

📍 Texas

Austin-based touchscreen technology developer SigmaSense has raised $22 million in a Series A round led by Foxconn Technology Group and joined by Corning, E Ink, GIS, and MRI. The company’s technology provides the ability to make high-hover touchless gestures on screens and sense through water.

Data Gumbo, a Houston-based maker of an industrial blockchain network, raised $4 million in Series B funding. L37 led and was joined by investors including Equinor Ventures and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures.

Babson Diagnostics, an Austin-based blood sample collection startup, raised $13.7 million in Series B funding from Siemens, Genesis Merchant Capital, and Lago Consulting Group. Axios

📍 New Mexico

Aqua Membranes, an Albuquerque-based developer of a water filtration system, raised $2.1 million in funding from investors including Clean Energy Ventures and Pentair.

Private Equity Deals

Gridiron Capital invested in AML RightSource, a Cleveland-based provider of anti-Money laundering compliance solutions.

KKR agreed to buy 1-800Contacts, a Draper, Utah-based contact lens retailer, from AEA Investors.

M&A

New Funds

Peterson Ventures of Salt Lake City raised $65 million for its third fund.

Blue Sage Capital has closed its third flagship private equity fund on $300 million. Based in Austin, Blue Sage targets growth deals, buyouts, and recapitalizations of middle-market companies.

Others

Rise of the Rest Seed Fund is partnering with Atlanta-based Opportunity Hub for a virtual event and $2 million pitch competition that aims to connect investors with Black founders.

Culture Break

📚Read- Supreme Inequality by Adam Cohen

🎬Watch- On the Basis of Sex (film/Showtime)

🎧Listen-

🧐Think- The Economy of World War II Proved a Green New Deal Is Possible

If you like Excoastal and want to help it grow, please share this newsletter with your colleagues, followers, and friends. If you hate it, then send it to your enemies. Have a great week!

Excoastal