MidBest is Back!
An update on the continued growth of the Midwest’s startup scene–and a preview of what’s to come
Big news–summer is around the corner and MidBest is back!
As you may remember, last summer we took a whirlwind road trip across the Midwest, meeting with 45+ founders and investors in just five days. We documented the experience in this newsletter and profiled the startup ecosystems of Columbus, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, and Dayton. Over the last eight months, we took some time away to focus on our studies (Will at Berkeley, Gaelen at Columbia), but the Heartland’s startup boom did not let up in our absence. Now, we’re excited to return to our two favorite places–the Midwest and your inbox!
This brings us to two exciting announcements:
Announcing our founder and investor community: We want to build a community around MidBest that stretches further than the newsletter. Our goal is to connect investors from across the U.S. to Midwest startups to help them grow!
🔧 Founders: Fill out this form if you are building something cool in the Midwest!
📈 Investors: Fill out this form if you want access to exciting Midwestern startups!
A look ahead to this summer: We will profile additional ecosystems, deep-dive into the region’s top startups, and share general entrepreneurial news from the Midwest. Potential city spotlights include Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Madison/Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Indianapolis, among others. If you or anyone you know is involved in the startup scene in these cities, whether as a founder, early employee, investor or otherwise, we’d love to talk to them.
And now a quick rundown of major startup news in the cities we explored last summer:
⭕ 🙌❗⭕ Columbus
📦 Triple Whale, an analytics platform for Shopify brands, announced a $27.7-milllion funding round in March, just 10 months after its founding.
🚑 Matt Scantland, the founder of CoverMyMeds–which kickstarted the city’s startup ecosystem flywheel with its billion-dollar sale to McKesson in 2017–unveiled his latest endeavor. In February, he announced a $57-milllion funding round for AndHealth, which seeks to reverse migraines with a mobile telehealth app.
📊 Aware, an AI startup that analyzes collaboration channels like Slack to provide modern governance, risk, and compliance controls, raised $60 million led by Goldman Sachs in October of 2021.
🐯 Cincinnati
🚀 In Cincinnati’s biggest startup news to date, Astronomer became the city’s first unicorn, securing $213 million in funding led by New York-based Insight Partners, pushing its valuation up to $1.4 billion!
👩💻 A key component of startup ecosystem growth is major exits (either through IPO or high-dollar acquisition). VNDLY went the latter route when it was acquired in November by HR-giant Workday for $510 million.
💸 Coterie, an insurtech company focusing on small businesses, raised a $50-million series B in October, upping its valuation to $171 million.
🏙️ Chicago
🔗 Last week, BloxRoute, a web3 startup offering high-speed blockchain distribution for cryptocurrency traders announced a $70 million funding round that brings the company’s valuation to $410 million.
🚀 In February, Loadsmart, a data-powered logistics platform, became Chicago’s latest unicorn, raising $200 million at a $1.3 billion valuation.
🏠 Kin, a tech-enabled homeowners insurance startup, announced a $100 million funding round.
🚀 Rumors are swirling that Tempus, a medtech startup founded by former Groupon CEO Eric Lefkovsky, is considering an IPO. It was last privately valued at $8.1 billion.
〽️ Detroit
🚧 Livegistics, a Pharrell-backed construction logistics startup, announced a $6 million seed round.
🔐 Trustpage, a cybersecurity startup, raised $5 million in seed funding.
🏎️ Building on the region’s legacy automotive expertise, Robotire closed a $7.5 million series A round to fund its growing tire-changing robotics technology.
✈️ Dayton
🧠 Positiv.ly, a mental health app for teens, secured investment from one of the region’s largest healthcare companies.
Consider this a tasting, rather than a comprehensive review, of recent Midwest startup activity. The region is continuing to invest in entrepreneurs, and players on the coasts are starting to notice, as evidenced by massive funding rounds led by New York and Bay Area VCs. And again, if you know anyone in the Heartland startup scene that we should talk to, please don’t hesitate to respond directly to this email (it goes right to our inboxes) and connect us.
Thanks for reading MidBest. We’ll talk to you soon.