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Funding Roundup for the Week of Oct. 28
Two Silicon Prairie companies will be moving to Buffalo in the upcoming weeks, thanks to a program created by 43North. The program announced seven winning companies last week – including Strayos (St. Louis) and Peanut Butter (Chicago). As part of the program, both companies must move their CEO and a majority of staff to Buffalo.…
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Research: Talent Attraction Case Study (Nebraska)
Last summer, the Aksarben Foundation approached Chapman and Company about creating a landscape analysis on talent for Nebraska. While this analysis is about Nebraska, there are many lessons for communities throughout the Silicon Prairie region. Here are some broad stroke lessons from the report: The United States is WAY behind on technology talent. This is…
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Ryvit Builds on Success
One of the major problems in the construction industry is that information must be entered into multiple platforms. So, for example, contact information must be entered into an enterprise resource management (ERM) platform as well as a customer relationship management platform (CRM). This makes the construction industry one of the least efficient in the world.…
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Funding Roundup for the Week of Oct. 21
It was a strong week for Minnesota. Between Total Expert and ShiraTronics, Minnesota based companies brought in more than $85 million in Venture Funding. There was a little more diversity than in previous weeks with companies in Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, and Wisconsin also raising substantial funds. These fundings are aggregate lists created from Crunchbase, SEC…
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St. Louis-Based Genomics Company, PierianDx, Raises a Big Series B Round
St. Louis continues to have strong biotechnology startup fundings. The most recent funded company is PierianDx, a clinical genomic informatics company. This week the company announced that it has raised $27 million from ATW Partners and SJF Ventures. In addition to these funders, other existing investors participated in the round, including Health Catalyst Capital, Inova…
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Funding Update for the week of October 14
Chicago had another strong week. Overall the Silicon Prairie more than one hundred million in fundings this month, including some large rounds in Chicago and in biotechnology. Large Rounds (10m+) Apervita – Chicago – $22.56 million – Apervita is a healthcare technology company that provides health insights using machine learning and artificial intelligence. The company…
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Research: State Funding Report for the Silicon Prairie
2018 was a terrific year for the Silicon Prairie regarding venture dollars deployed. More than $6.1B was deployed in the region. While the number of companies receiving funds was about 8% lower (approximately 1450 companies were venture backed in the region), the amount of funding was up more than 34.5% from 2017 to 2018. Thus,…
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Precision Farming Startup Receives Funding
Winnebago, Minnesota-based AgTech-startup, Aker Technologies (formerly Leading Edge Technologies), announced on August 27th that it has raised equity financing of $2.6M to further develop its crop diagnostics and analytics platform, specifically its TrueCause™ and Aker Pest Network™ services. The company also recently set up offices in Creve Coeur, Missouri, part of Greater St. Louis, to…
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Join Pipeline, Change Your Entrepreneurial Trajectory
Today, August 28th, the Pipeline Entrepreneurial Fellowship is opening its application for 2020 fellows. Pipeline is the premier networking, mentoring, and entrepreneurial encouragement program in the Midwest. It has effectively helped build a network throughout Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. In so doing, Pipeline has helped, inspired, networked, and shaped individual entrepreneurs that have collectively created…
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St. Louis Company Raises $13+ million
Capacity raised $13.2 million from Midwest investors. The company has a strong pedigree with the co-founders each having successful ventures, including a large exit. However, the firm went about this differently. They had their 50+ employees help in the fundraising efforts by arming each employee with the pitch and presentation. This is an unusual strategy…