Tenzing Capital Launches in Wichita
Plus Healthcare Admin & Payments in Madison, Mental Health tech in Denver, 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: 41%
Last Week’s Views: 176
ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
📆 Excoastal will be off for the next two weeks, back later in the month!
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago
LogicGate, a provider of risk and compliance solutions, raised $113 million in Series C funding led by PSG.
📍 Michigan
Strata Oncology, an Ann Arbor-based oncology company, raised $90 million in a Series C round. Wellington Management led, joined by Cormorant Asset Management, Monashee Investment Management, and Highside Capital Management.
📍 Wisconsin
Veda, a Madison-based healthcare administration and payments startup, raised $45 million in Series B funding. Oak HC/FT led.
📍 Minnesota
Niron Magnetics, a Minneapolis-based maker of magnets free of rare earths, raised $21.3 million from The Volvo Cars Tech Fund and Volta Energy Technologies.
📍 Toronto
Trade X, a B2B cross-border automotive trading platform, raised $44 million (Canadian) from Aimia.
1Password, provider app-based password management software, raised $100 million in Series B funding at a $2 billion valuation. Accel led.
Deep Genomics, a drug discovery startup that leverages AI, raised $180 million in Series C funding. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led, joined by CPPIB, Fidelity, Alexandria Venture Investments, Amplitude Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Magnetic Ventures, and True Ventures.
📍 Raleigh
Pendo, a customer analytics startup, raised a $150 million Series F at a $2.6 billion valuation. B Capital Group led, joined by Silver Lake Waterman and insiders Battery Ventures, General Atlantic, Tiger Global, and Sapphire Ventures.
📍 Idaho
Continuous Composites raised a $17 million Series A led by B. Riley Venture Capital. The company is a provider of hardware, software and composite materials used to automate 3D-printing processes.
📍 Denver/Boulder
SonderMind, the Denver-based mental health company, raised $150 million in Series C funding. Drive Capital and Premji Invest co-led the round, joined by General Catalyst, Partners Group, Smash Ventures, Kickstart, and F-Prime Capital.
Denver-based Mentor Spaces, a mentorship platform for corporate DNI efforts, raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact.
📍 Texas
Dallas-based Saber Labs, a stablecoin exchange, raised $7.7 million in a seed financing. Race Capital led, joined by Social Capital, Jump Capital, Multicoin Capital, and Solana Foundation.
OneDay, a Dallas-based video storytelling tech maker, raised $19 million in Series B funding led by Volition Capital.
Austin-based Spot, an accidental injury insurance provider, raised $17.5 million in funding. GreatPoint Ventures led the round and was joined by Montage Ventures, Silverton Partners, Mutual of Omaha, and MS&AD.
QuotaPath, an Austin and Philadelphia-based provider of commission tracking software, raised $21.3 million in Series A funding. Insight Partners led, joined by ATX Ventures, Integr8d Capital, Stage 2 Capital, and HubSpot Ventures.
SolCyber, a Dallas-based managed security services provider, raised $20 million in Series A funding from ForgePoint Capital.
Eterneva, an Austin-based grief and wellness startup, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Tiger led, joined by Goodwater Capital, Capstar Ventures, NextCoast Ventures, and Mark Cuban.
ConverseNow, an Austin-based maker of voice tech for restaurants, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Craft Ventures led, joined by LiveOak Venture Partners, Tensility Venture Partners, Knoll Ventures, Bala Investments, 2048 Ventures, and Bridge Investments.
Private Equity Deals
Drips, an Akron, Ohio-based conversational AI platform, raised money from Accel-KKR.
NielsenIQ, backed by Advent, acquired Cornerstone Capabilities, a Toronto-based provider of revenue management software.
Blackstone’s GP Stakes business will acquire a minority stake in GTCR, the Chicago-based private equity investor.
M&A
Minneapolis-based Datasite, acquired Firmex, a Toronto-based virtual data room and file-sharing service provider, from Vertu Capital and BDC Growth Equity Partners.
New Funds
Tenzing Capital, a Wichita-based early stage venture firm focused on under appreciated regions, completed a first close on its inaugural fund. The firm is now actively investing, with check sizes of 100-500k. Find out more here.
Pritzker Private Capital, the Chicago-based family investment firm, closed PPC III at $2.7 billion.
Others
Cards Against Humanity, a Chicago-based game maker, hired Moelis & Co. to explore a possible sale, per Bloomberg.
What I’m Reading
The Market Minute: IPO Activity Is Speeding Up In These States
America’s Investing Boom Goes Far Beyond Reddit Bros
The year that everyone became a creator
Startup/VC Twitter
Thread 👇🏼
Podcast Addiction
Culture Break
📚Read- The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
🎬Watch- Moffie available on Hulu
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- Where Do Eels Come From?
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