The third quarter of 2019 featured a handful of flashy fundings for local startups.
Agriculture company Puris received $75 million from Cargill. Former Minnesota Cup winner 75F raised $18 million from a group of high-profile investors that included Bill Gates' Breakthrough Ventures. And meanwhile, other local businesses raised additional fresh funding that promises help them grow in 2020.
Below, Minne Inno recounts some of the quarter’s largest VC raises and tech-related headlines over the last three months.
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Read Minne Inno’s past monthly funding roundups here.
JULY
Fundings:
- Player’s Health, a startup whose platform collects injury data on young athletes, closed on a $2 million round of funding, according to a regulatory filing. The funding round was led by Boston-based Will Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that focuses on sports startups.
- Miromatrix Medical, a biotech company whose long-term goal is to grow human organs using a patient’s own cells, spun off a portion of its business to create a new startup. The new company, called Reprise Biomedical, launched with around $12.5 million in private funding.
- Digital-health startup Pops! Diabetes Care closed on a $6 million round of Series A funding from a group of investors that includes Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
Stories:
AUGUST
Fundings:
- Puris Proteins, a Minnesota company that provides a key ingredient for Beyond Meat products, received a $75 million investment from agribusiness giant Cargill. Founded in 1985, Puris is the largest North American producer of pea protein. The company will use the funding from Cargill to more than double production at its 200,000-square-foot facility in Dawson.
- ZapInfo, a company creating productivity tools for human resources and sales professionals, closed on $1.75 million to continue growing its recruiter platform.
Stories:
SEPTEMBER
Fundings:
- Burnsville-based smart-energy startup 75F closed on an $18 million round of venture capital that includes investment from a group of high-profile tech CEOs and a billionaire-backed investment fund. 75F’s round of financing was co-led by Breakthrough Ventures and the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative. Breakthrough is a $1 billion fund created by Bill Gates in 2016 focused on backing companies creating technology that could potentially combat climate change.
Stories:
