JumpCloud Brings in $75 Million
Plus cold pressed juice, regenerative medical implants, VPNs, and more.
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: 49%
Last Week’s Views: 187
ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Excoastal will be off later this month!
Dual pressures of Thanksgiving/Final Exams are stressing my calendar.
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago
Dimension Inx, a Chicago-based company developing regenerative medical implants that repair tissues and organs, raised $3.2 million in seed funding. KdT Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Better Ventures and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
📍 Minneapolis
Cold-pressed juice brand So Good So You raised $14.5 million in financing led by Prelude Growth Partners. The company makes shot-sized refrigerated beverages and plant-based drinks with ingredients known to improve immune system health.
📍 Toronto
Tailscale, a Toronto-based corporate VPN for remote teams, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Accel led, joined by Heavybit and Uncork Capital.
📍Denver/Boulder
Denver-based JumpCloud, a provider of cloud-based tools for managing user identity, raised $75 million in a Series E funding round led by BlackRock.
Highwing, a Denver-based commercial insurance tech startup, raised $4 million in seed funding. Baldwin Risk Partners and BrokerTech Ventures led the round.
📍 Silicon Slopes
GuideCX, a Salt Lake City-based customer onboarding platform, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Sorenson Ventures led, and was joined by Epic Ventures, Orchard Ventures, Album VC, and Prelude Ventures.
SLC-based PassiveLogic, the creator of an automated building controls platform, raised $16 million in Series A funding. Keyframe Capital and Addition led the round.
📍 Texas
Cellwize Wireless Technologies, developer of technology for mobile network automation and orchestration, raised $32 million in a Series B round. Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures led. Additional investors include Verizon Ventures and Samsung Next Ventures.
Austin-based AppBrilliance, a payments technology startup, raised $3 million in seed funding from investors including Studio VC.
Spruce, an Austin, Texas-based provider of lifestyle services to the multifamily industry, raised $8 million in Series A funding. Mercury Fund led, and was joined by Sweat Equity Partners.
Didactic, an Austin-based e-learning company co-founded by Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani and AltMBA co-founder Wes Kao, raised $4.3 million in seed funding. First Round led the round. Term Sheet
Private Equity Deals
TPG and TA Associates are in advanced talks to acquire Planview, an Austin-based software maker, from Thoma Bravo for more than $1.5 billion including debt, per Bloomberg.
Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe has agreed to purchase Pittsburgh-based TrueCommerce from Accel-KKR.
Chicago-based Periscope Equity has announced an investment in Salt Lake City-based MobiChord, a provider of technology expense management software.
The Carlyle Group has acquired a majority stake in Manna Pro Products, a St. Louis-based manufacturer of pet care products.
M&A
Adobe will acquire Lehi, Utah-based project management software maker Workfront for $1.5 billion, in a bid to make it easier for dispersed and remote teams to use its tools.
VF Corp. agreed to buy Colorado-based streetwear fashion label Supreme for $2.1 billion.
New Funds
No new funds this week.
Others
Visa invested in LISNR, a Cincinnati-based ultrasonic data transmission firm.
What I’m Reading
Mapping the Global EdTech Venture Capital Space: Insights From 2015–2020
The ‘Problematic,’ VC-Threatening Study That Has Split Harvard Professors
Startup/VC Twitter
Don’t sleep on GoPuff.
Truly something in here for everyone.
Philosophy just isn’t the same these days.
Niche media + modern retail
Podcast Addiction
SaaS Growth, Product Management, Retention, Flywheels: Behind the Paywall with Lenny Rachitsky - Venture Stories
Culture Break
📚Read- Putin’s People by Catherine Belton
🎬Watch- Taking a break from screens after the last week.
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- When the Virus Came for the American Dream
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