Streaming Tech in Chicago and Austin
Vertical specific productivity software in Minneapolis, 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: 36%
Last Week’s Views: 190
ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago
Phenix, a provider of real-time streaming tech, raised $16.7 million in Series B funding at a $90 million valuation. KB Partners led the round, joined by Verizon Ventures and Manheim Investments.
ActiveCampaign, a customer experience platform, raised $240 million in Series C funding, valuing it at over $3 billion. Tiger Global led the round and was joined by investors including Dragoneer, Susquehanna Growth Equity, and Silversmith Capital Partners. Term Sheet
📍 Detroit
Signal Advisors, a provider of annuities and life insurance, raised $10 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst. Detroit Venture Partners, Ludlow Ventures, General Catalyst, Mercury Fund, Annox Capital, and SV Angels also participated.
📍 Minnesota
SiteKick, a Minneapolis-based construction-site productivity startup, raised $2.3 million. Great North Ventures led the round, joined by Bootstrappers.
📍 St. Louis
Hungry Planet, a plant-based meat company, raised $25 million in Series A funding. Post Holdings led and was joined by TRIREC.
Tortuga AgTech, a farming robotics company, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Lewis & Clark AgriFood led and was joined by investors including Ceres Partners, Root Ventures, Spero Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Morado Ventures, Colorado Impact Fund, Remus Capital, and Grit Ventures. Term Sheet
📍 Nashville
Alto Solutions, an IRA platform, raised $17 million in Series A funding. Unusual Ventures led and was joined by investors including Moment Ventures, Acrew Capital, Alpha Edison, Carta, Coinbase Ventures, Franklin Templeton, New York Life Ventures, and Stone Ridge Holdings Group.
📍 Boulder/Denver
Soona, a Denver-based digital content studio for e-commerce, raised $10.2 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures.
The TIFIN Group, a Boulder-based fintech platform, raised $22.3 million in Series B funding from investors including JP Morgan, Morningstar, and Broadridge.
Unsupervised, a Boulder-based automated analytics platform, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Cathay Innovation and SignalFire co-led the round, joined by Coatue, Eniac Ventures, and NextGen Venture Partners.
Denver-based Albedo, which operates a constellation of satellites that capture visible and thermal imagery, raised $10 million in seed funding led by Initialized Capital. Liquid 2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Jetstream, and Rebel Fund also participated.
📍 Texas
RazorMetrics, an Austin-based drug spend savings platform for employers and health plans, raised $6 million in Series A funding. Sopris led the round. Term Sheet
Austin-based Atmosphere, which offers a streaming platform, for businesses, raised $25 million in Series B funding from Valor Equity Partners.
Medchart, a Dallas-based startup focused on medical records, raised $17 million in Seed and Series A funding. Crosslink Capital and Golden Ventures led the round and were joined by investors including Vast Ventures, Union Ventures, iGan Partners, Stanford Law School, and Nas. Term Sheet
Private Equity Deals
Thoma Bravo bought Calabrio, a Minneapolis-based provider of customer engagement and analytics software, from KKR.
PSG invested in Kenect, a Utah-based provider of business texting and communications technology.
Thoma Bravo completed a $10.2 billion buyout of RealPage, a Texas-based provider of software and data analytics to the real estate industry.
Alpine Investors acquired Aspira, a Dallas-based provider of software for the outdoor recreation industry.
M&A
Gemspring Capital acquired Outform, a Kansas-based developer of retail customer engagement solutions, and merged it with Chicago-based Rapid Displays, which provides custom merchandising displays.
New Funds
Nevada-based Digital Alpha Advisors, an investor in digital infrastructure and services, has closed its second fund on more than $1 billion, exceeding a hard cap.
Endeavour Vision, a medtech VC firm with US offices in Minneapolis, raised $375 million for its second fund.
What I’m Reading
Product Hunt: The Internet's Destiny Machine
Clubhouse Is Dead (It Just Doesn’t Know It Yet)
21 Chicago Companies to Watch in 2021
Podcast Addiction
Neal Sáles-Griffin on giving first to grow Chicago’s startup ecosystem - Give First
Culture Break
📚Read- The Steppe by Anton Chekhov (continuing my journey through Russin literature with the first of Chekhov’s short novels)
🎬Watch- Nothing new here this week on account of a busy schedule.
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- Do Brain Implants Change Your Identity?
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