While we’re primarily focused on Minnesota’s innovation economy, we also have our eyes on all of the startup and tech activity happening throughout the entire Midwest. Here are the major tech fundings, acquisitions, mergers, moves and IPOs that went down in the region in May. See all Midwest Reports here.
6/5: Cincinnati-based Genetesis, a medical device company using biomagnetic imaging for ER chest pain triage, raised a $7.5 million Series A from CincyTech, with participation from Mark Cuban's Radical Investments, the Ohio Innovation Fund, and Raptor Group.
6/5: Louisville-based Packlane, a startup that makes it easy to create custom boxes and packaging for brands and businesses, raised a $4 million Series A from Breakout Capital, with participation from Draper Associates.
6/5: Chicago-based private equity firm NextGen Growth Partners closed its inaugural fund above its $50 million target, according to an SEC filing.
6/7: Chicago-based LearnCore, a maker of sales training software, was acquired by Showpad, a Belgium-based sales enablement platform, for $50 million. Founded in San Francisco in 2010, LearnCore relocated to Chicago in 2011 and has steadily grown its corporate training business without raising institutional venture capital. LearnCore’s co-founders Vishal Shah is also one of the creators of Catapult Chicago, a co-working space that has been home to several of Chicago’s top startups like Shiftgig, Bucketfeet and Opternative.
6/7: Okemos, Michigan-based NetRate Systems, a SaaS rating engine and workflow platform for commercial insurance, received an investment from Polaris Partners. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
6/12: Chicago-based insurance startup Kin Insurance raised $13 million in funding from August Capital. In addition to the funding, Kin also welcomed Caribou Honig, chairman and cofounder of the InsureTech Connect conference and a founding partner of the boutique venture capital firm QED Investors, to its board.
6/12: St. Louis-based Jane.ai, an artificial intelligence platform that makes all of a company's information accessible through chat, raised an $8.4 million Series A.
6/18: Minneapolis-based Flipgrid, a video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families, was acquired by Microsoft. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
6/19: Chicago-based investment firm PPM America Capital Partners raised $648 million for its seventh private equity co-investment fund, according to an SEC filing.
6/19: Birmingham, Michigan-based private equity firm Lorient Capital revealed via an SEC filing that it is seeking to raise $122 million for its healthcare fund.
6/20: Columbia Falls, Montana-based ViZn Energy Systems, a provider of utility-scale energy storage systems, raised $15 million in funding. Investors were not disclosed.
6/20: Indianapolis-based Costello, a real-time sales playbook platform, raised a $2.1 million seed round from Dundee Ventures, Collina Ventures, Irena Goloschokin and Social Capital.
6/28: Chicago-based tastytrade, an options brokerage for the active trader, raised $20 million in funding from TCV.
6/28: Chicago-based EVENTup, an online marketplace for event venues, was acquired by Gather, an Atlanta-based event management software platform for restaurants and venues. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but EVENTUp had previously raised $1.8 million from Lightbank, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, New Enterprise Associates and more.
(Data culled from Inno reporting, Fortune’s Term Sheet newsletter, Axios’ Pro Rata newsletter, SEC filings and more)
