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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: 38%
Last Week’s Views: 385
ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago (and Northbrook)
Clinify Health, a digital health firm, raised $3.1 million. Seae Ventures led and was joined by Better Ventures, Impact Engine, Acumen America and the California Health Care Foundation.
Stable, an insurtech company focused on price risk management, raised $46.5 million in Series A funding. Greycroft led, joined by Notion Capital, Anthemis, Continental Grain, Syngenta, and Ascot.
High Definition Vehicle Insurance Group, a commercial auto insurance tech company, raised $32.5 million in Series B funding. Weatherford Capital led, joined by Daimler Trucks North America, McVestCo, Munich Re Ventures, 8VC, Autotech Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures.
Out Of Office, a travel app, raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding. Investors included Brand Foundry and various individuals.
Anthill AI, maker of HR software for deskless workers, raised $3 million in seed funding led by Rethink Education, with Origin Ventures, BBG Ventures, The Fund, JFF, and others also participating.
Hologram, an IoT device management startup, raised $65 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global, with Bullpen Capital, NextView Ventures, and Mucker Capital also participating.
Zeal, a payroll infrastructure startup, raised $13 million in Series A funding. Spark Capital led, joined by Commerce Ventures.
Bridge to Life, a Northbrook-based provider of organ preservation solutions, raised $56 million. Perceptive Advisors led.
📍 Indiana
Codelicious, a Carmel-based coding and computer science curriculum, raised $3.8 million in seed funding. EduLab Capital Partners and Allos Ventures led, joined by investors including Sixty8 Capital, GRE Capital, and Elevate Ventures.
📍 Michigan
Blumira, an Ann Arbor-based cybersecurity startup focused on SMEs, raised $10.3 million in Series A funding. Mercury led, joined by Ten Eleven Ventures, M25 and Array Ventures.
📍 Ohio
Columbus-based Finite State, a provider of security solutions for connected devices and infrastructure for software supply chains, raised a $30 million Series B. Energize Ventures led, with participation from Schneider Electric and Merlin Ventures.
80 Acres Farms, a Hamilton-based vertical farming company focused on eco-friendly farming and pesticide-free produce, raised $160 million in Series B funding. General Atlantic led, joined by Siemens Financial Services, Blue Earth, Barclays, and Taurus.
Champ Titles, a Cleveland-based company focused on transferring vehicle ownership titles, raised $8.5 million in Series A funding. EOS Venture Partners and W. R. Berkley Corporation led.
📍 Wisconsin
Rentable, a Madison-based apartment rental platform, raised $22.5 million in Series B funding. Susquehanna Growth Equity led.
📍 Minnesota
Suma Brands, a Minneapolis-based e-commerce merchant consolidator, raised $150 million in funding led by Pace Capital and Material, with a credit facility led by i80 Group.
Pluralytics, a Minneapolis-based natural language processing startup, raised $1 million in seed funding. Ecliptic Capital led.
Branch, a Minneapolis-based fintech company focused on workforce payments, raised $48 million in Series B funding. Addition led and was joined by Drive Capital, Crosscut Ventures, Bonfire Ventures, Matchstick Ventures,and HR Tech Investments.
Parallax, an Edina-based provider of business analytics, raised $7 million in Series A funding. Grotech Ventures led, joined by Matchstick Ventures and Rally Ventures.
TeamGenius, a Minneapolis-based youth sports development software provider, raised $1.1 million in seed funding led by Great North Ventures.
📍 Kansas City
Lee’s Summit-based eHawk, maker of a smartphone-enabled alternative to ankle monitors, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding. KCRise Fund led the financing with Sandalphon Capital, Service Provider Capital, and several Kansas City-area angel investors also participating.
📍 St. Louis
Balto, a contact center tech platform, raised $37.5 million in Series B funding. Stripes led, joined by RingCentral Ventures, Sierra Ventures, TIA Ventures, OCA Ventures, Stage Venture Partners, SaaS Venture Capital, Sandalphon Capital, Cultivation Capital, and Atreides Management.
Beta Hatch, a St. Louis-based agtech startup focused on insects, raised $10 million. Lewis & Clark AgriFood led, joined by Cavallo Ventures and Innova Memphis.
📍 Omaha
Breeze, an insurtech startup, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Link Ventures led the round, joined by Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, M25, Fiat Ventures, and Invest Nebraska.
📍 Denver/Boulder
Reserve Trust, a Denver-based business payments company, raised $30.5 million in Series A funding led by QED Investors, with FinTech Collective and Ardent Venture Partners also participating.
Urban Sky, a Denver-based high-altitude balloon startup focused on imaging, raised $4.1 million in seed funding. Catapult Ventures and Union Labs led, joined by TenOneTen Ventures, NewStack Ventures, and Techstars.
📍 Silicon Slopes
Moises, a Salt Lake City-based music software startup, raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Kickstart Fund, with Valutia, Verve Capital, and others also participating.
Brandless, a Draper-based direct-to-consumer e-commerce startup, raised $118 million in equity and debt funding led by Clarke Capital Group.
Aumni, a Salt Lake City-based investment analytics platform, raised $50 million in Series B funding. J.P. Morgan led the round, joined by Pelion Venture Partners, WndrCo, Citadel Securities, Invesco Private Capital, Vanderbilt University, and Kera Capital.
TaxBit, a Salt Lake City-based provider of crypto tax and accounting software, raised $130 million in Series B funding led by IVP and Insight Partners. Tiger Global, Paradigm, 9Yards Capital, and others also participated.
📍 Texas
Data Gumbo, a Houston-based blockchain company, raised $7.7 million. Equinor Ventures led, joined by Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures and L37.
BreachQuest, a Dallas-based cybersecurity startup, raised $4.4 million in seed funding from Slow Ventures.
Austin-based ICON, a developer of advanced construction technologies for 3D printed homes, raised $207 million in a Series B round led by Norwest Venture Partners.
ClosedLoop.ai, an Austin-based healthcare data science platform, raised $34 million in Series B funding. Telstra Ventures led, and was joined by Breyer Capital, Greycroft Ventures, .406 Ventures, and Healthfirst.
ThirdAI, a Houston-based deep learning company, raised $6 million in seed funding. Neotribe Ventures, Cervin Ventures, and Firebolt Ventures led.
Kronologic, an Austin, Texas-based maker of scheduling software, raised $20 million in seed funding led by Signal Peak Ventures, with Silverton Partners, Next Coast Ventures, and Geekdom Fund also participating.
Cart.com, a Houston-based e-commerce services provider, raised $98 million in Series B led by Oak HC/FT, with PayPal Ventures, Clearco, G9 Ventures, Mercury Fund, Valedor Partners, and Arsenal Growth participating.
Esper, an Austin-based govtech startup, raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Cota Capital, with 8VC, Gaingels, and Stand Together Ventures Lab also participating.
Horizen Labs, an Austin-based blockchain technology platform focused on developing secure and programmable blockchains, raised $7 million in seed funding. Kenetic Capital led, joined by Digital Currency Group, Liberty City, Sound Ventures, Deribit, Artist Capital, Deus, and LionTree.
📍 Arizona
Connections Health Solutions, a Phoenix-based behavioral-health-crisis startup, raised $30 million. Heritage Group led the round.
Aira, a Chandler-based wireless charging company, has raised $12 million in a seed round led by individual angels.
nShare, a Scottsdale-based insurance company, raised $5 million. ManchesterStory and The Hive led.
Private Equity Deals
Cressey & Co. invested in Home Care Pulse, a Rexburg, Idaho-based home care software company.
Carlyle invested in Abrigo, an Austin-based software provider to financial institutions, valuing it over $1 billion, per Bloomberg.
Avathon Capital invested in ReUp Education, an Austin-based re-skilling and edtech company.
Topspin Consumer Partners invested in SportPet, a Waukesha, Wisconsin-based firm that makes and markets private label pet products.
M&A
Relatient, a Nashville-based patient engagement platform, agreed to merge with Radix Health while also raising around $100 million from Brighton Park Capital.
Coinbase will acquire Zabo, a Burleson, Texas-based crypto data aggregator.
New Funds
Moderne Ventures, a Chicago-based early-stage venture capital firm, raised a $200 million fund. LPs include AvalonBay Communities, Camden Property Trust, Greystar, JBG SMITH, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, Oaktree Capital Management, and Realogy.
Arthur Ventures of Minneapolis is raising $225 million for its fourth flagship fund and $150 million for its third growth fund, per SEC filings.
What I’m Reading
2021 Best of the Midwest: Startup Cities Rankings
Startup/VC Twitter
Podcast Addiction
Culture Break
📚Read- How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith
🎬Watch- The White Lotus on HBO
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- WHAT BOBBY MCILVAINE LEFT BEHIND
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