Welcome Back!
Five Chicago area companies raise + supply chain solutions in Wisconsin and cybersecurity in Idaho.
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: 34%
Last Week’s Views: 201
ICYMI: the Excoastal Investors Airtable sheet:
Midwest Venture Capital Firms and Angels
Venture Capital Deals
📍 Chicago
Clearcover has raised a $200 million Series D led by Eldridge, with participation from American Family Ventures, Cox Enterprises and OMERS. The company offers a platform that uses AI to provide lower car insurance rates.
Hazel Technologies, a startup focused on mitigating food waste, raised $70 million in Series C funding co-led by Pontifax AgTech and Temasek. Also participating were S2G Ventures, Pangea Ventures, Rhapsody Venture Partners, Asahi Kasai Ventures, Jordan Park Group and the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Foundation.
Lake Forrest-based Jaguar Gene Therapy, a gene therapy startup, raised $139 million in Series B funding. Lilly Ventures and Deerfield Management co-led, and were joined by Goldman Sachs, Arch Venture Partners and Nolan Capital.
HomeX, the maker of an app that connects homeowners with home services providers, raised $90 million. New Mountain Capital led.
Torch, a digital freight network for short-haul trips, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. Maersk Growth led, joined by Schematic Ventures, Bluestein Ventures, Anorak Ventures, Supply Chain Ventures, and SaaS Ventures.
📍 Wisconsin
Paxafe, a Milwaukee-based provider of supply chain risk mitigation solutions, raised $2.25 million in seed funding led by Ubiquity Ventures.
📍 Ohio
Keyfactor, an Independence-based certificate lifecycle automation company, raised $125 million led by existing backer Insight Partners.
📍 Indiana
Encamp, an Indianapolis-based provider of EHS compliance software, raised $12 million in Series B funding led by OpenView Venture Partners. Allos Ventures, High Alpha Capital and IU Ventures also participated.
📍 Silicon Slopes
Bandwango, a Murray-based experience activities marketplace, raised $3.1 million in seed funding. Next Frontier Capital led, joined by Kickstart, Signal Peak Ventures, SaaS Ventures and Ocean Azul Partners.
📍 Idaho
PlexTrac, a Boise-based cybersecurity workflow platform, raised $10 million from Madrona Venture Group, Noro-Moseley and StagteDot0.
📍 Texas
The Zebra, an Austin-based maker of an insurance comparison site, raised $150 million in Series D funding, valuing it at over $1 billion. Investors included Weatherford Capital and Accel. Term Sheet
Cart.com, a Houston-based provider of e-commerce enablement solutions, raised $25 million in Series A funding. Mercury Fund and Arsenal Growth co-led, joined by Moonshots Capital and Scarlet Venture Fund.
📍 Arizona
Persefoni, a Tempe-based carbon accounting and management platform, raised $9.7 million.
Private Equity Deals
Waud Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in TeamSnap, a Boulder-based company that offers a management and communication software platform for amateur sports teams.
Hellman & Friedman has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Austin-based Enverus, the developer of a SaaS-based data analytics platform for the oil and gas industry according to PitchBook.
Bregal Sagemount invested $100 million in Scorpion, a Salt Lake City.-based provider of technology services for SMBs.
New Funds
Starting Line, the Chicago-based VC firm, raised $30 million for its second fund. The new fund is backed by a number of founders at Chicago-based consumer companies, as well as institutional investors such as Foundry Group and Vintage Investment Partners. See more below:
Houston-based Energy Transition Ventures has launched a $75 million fund focused on energy transition technologies. The fund will invest in areas including electrification, mobility, distributed energy grid and AI for cleantech.
Dallas-based CenterOak Partners has raised $690 million for its second flagship buyout fund.
What I’m Reading
Venture Capital in 2021: Bigger, faster and more global
Strategy Session: Lagomaj Capital Pairs Capital With Partnership
Cannabis Startups Navigate Regulations, Lack Of Capital To Plant Industry Seeds
Pittsburgh as a Startup: What Stage are We In?
Startup/VC Twitter
I will leave you with just one tweet this week.
Podcast Addiction
Drive Capital: Masha Khusid on Venture Investing in the Midwest - Middle Tech
Culture Break
📚Read- Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
🎬Watch- The Sound of Metal on Amazon Prime (personally, this is the film I’ve most enjoyed out of this years Oscar nominees)
🎧Listen-
🧐Think- Zoom Court Is Changing How Justice Is Served
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