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Minnesota startups brought the heat in the final month of summer. Just under a dozen local companies raised a combined $114 million in venture capital in August.
Biotech company Recombinetics led the pack with its $34 million raise to fund its "oinkubator" technology, which the company hopes will one day be used to grow human organs inside pigs.
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FUNDINGS
Zipnosis
- Zipnosis, which makes software that drives many health systems' online-care programs, closed on $3 million in equity financing. The company will put its recent round of funding toward supporting its new partnership with the American Academy of Family Physicians.
ValenTX
- Medical-device company ValenTX, which is developing a treatment for obesity, closed on nearly $10.3 million in equity financing, which it plans to put toward a clinical trials of its product.
Urotronic
- Urotronic Inc. raised $20 million in venture capital to fund clinical studies and double the size of its 14-person staff. Urotronic aims to bring the tech behind drug-coated balloon devices, now used to treat vascular disease, into the urology market.
Foodsby
- Foodsby, a tech startup that orchestrates delivery of restaurant food to office buildings, closed on $13.5 million to expand into new markets and ramp up hiring. Piper Jaffray's merchant banking business led the round of funding. The company's previous investors (Chicago-based Corazon Capital and New York-based Greycoft Partners and Rally Ventures) also participated.
Recombinetics
- Gene-editing startup Recombinetics raised $34 million in funding that will go partly toward accelerating development of its "oinkubator" technology, which could eventually let scientists grow human organs inside pigs.
Sansoro Health
- Health-IT company Sansoro Health closed on $8 million in venture capital and plans to ramp up hiring and start pitching its products to insurers. Minneapolis-based Sansoro makes Emissary, an app integrates electronic medical record systems and connects those systems with third-party apps.
SportsHub
- Minneapolis-based sports-tech company SportsHub Technologies has raised about $2.7 million in a planned $10 million round, according to a regulatory filing.
ClickSwitch
- Tech startup ClickSwitch Holdings, which aims to make it easier for people to move bank accounts from one financial institution to another, is planning to ramp up hiring after closing on $3.5 million in financing.
ZapInfo
- Less than two months after selling MyAlerts to a private equity firm, local serial entrepreneur Doug Berg raised $1.25 million in seed funding for his new venture, ZapInfo. ZapInfo makes an extension for the Chrome web browser that lets people copy information from websites and input it into software applications. The company will put its new round toward growing its staff.
Vireo Health
- Vireo Health, the parent company of several medical-marijuana ventures including Minnesota Medical Solutions, raised $16 million to finance expansion efforts. In a statement, Vireo hinted at a future IPO in Canada.
StemoniX
- Local biotech startup StemoniX has raised around $1.4 million in a planned $12 million round, according to a regulatory filing. Maple Grove-based StemoniX won the Minnesota Cup, the state's largest startup competition, two years ago.
