Social Assurance, a Lincoln-based company offering marketing, sales and community engagement solutions for regulated industries, recently announced it has acquired MindMixer, a civic engagement platform. Company leadership said the acquisition furthers Social Assurance’s reach in the public sector while expanding its suite of digital communications tools. 

Founded in 2011, Social Assurance initially focused on serving financial services, such as banks and credit unions. It has expanded to also serve schools and government agencies. Its solutions help with storytelling, transparency and connecting with clients.

MindMixer is a platform to help community leaders spark conversations on topics such as policies and projects, collect feedback and generate reports from these interactions. Originally starting in 2010 in Omaha, its leadership team would go on a journey of scaling, relocating, pivoting and returning the platform to its Nebraska roots. 

Social Assurance Co-founder and CEO Ben Pankonin said he was aware of MindMixer and its founders during his own entrepreneurial journey. While he “admired them at a distance,” he said he didn’t follow MindMixer as closely until their target industries started to overlap. 

“When we looked at it, we said, ‘Hey, there’s a lot of cool opportunities around what we can do … with the data, with the technology,’” Pankonin said. “When you have the sort of reach that MindMixer had, it gave us a lot of opportunity to really reach a lot of customers that we hadn’t before.”

With the brand and product now under Social Assurance, Pankonin said they plan to advance the MindMixer platform by implementing AI functionality. Leveraging MindMixer’s data and market history in combination with a unified suite of specialized tools, he said will add value to its client network.

“When things become … more and more contentious and political, one of the things we have to do is we have to find different ways of listening,” Pankonin said. “This is really an area that we really looked at MindMixer as a leader in.”

Pankonin said this is the first-ever acquisition by Social Assurance and reflects the company’s recent growth. He declined to share the specific terms of the deal. 

MindMixer’s journey home

In its early years, MindMixer completed multiple fundraising rounds, raised millions of dollars and scaled its offices to Omaha, Lincoln and Kansas City. The company consolidated operations in Kansas City in 2014. Leadership eventually rebranded the company as mySidewalk, and its focus shifted to data analytics and visualization solutions for local governments, nonprofits and community leaders.

MidMixer returned operations to Nebraska in 2020 when Nathan Preheim, MindMixer co-founder and the startup’s original COO, became majority owner of the product. Preheim stepped away from the day-to-day at MindMixer a few years after launch. He moved from an advisor role back to operator when mySidewalk leadership decided to spin off the MindMixer product from its platform. At the time, Preheim was co-leading The Startup Collaborative, a startup accelerator co-founded with Erica Wassinger.

In 2021, Preheim and Wassinger launched Proven Ventures, a pre-seed venture debt fund in Omaha. The following year he started as an adjunct professor at Creighton University. In 2024, he became the director for the Center for Enterprise Value at Creighton’s Heider College of Business. 

Between increased involvement at Creighton and the sudden passing of Justin Kemerling — a close friend and fundamental member of the MindMixer team — Preheim decided it was time to move away from MindMixer and offer the reins to someone else. 

“It feels like a full-circle moment for me,” Preheim said. “I’m genuinely happy to see it end up in good hands. There were other suitors, but Social Assurance offered the best odds of long-term success and stewardship of the brand.”

The future for Social Assurance

Making note of MindMixer’s early departure from Nebraska due to an argued smaller talent pool in the state, Pankonin said there was now a bit of “irony” with its return. He pointed to Social Assurance flexing its talent with AI technology. 

“We’re always looking for great talent, and we’re serving a bigger market now than we ever were before,” Pankonin said. “AI is a great accelerator, but that doesn’t mean we’re not hiring.”

Preheim and his team are no longer directly involved in MindMixer, but he is excited to see the product and brand transition to Pankonin’s team. 

“MindMixer was a professional thrill ride,” Preheim said. “The broader takeaway for Nebraska founders: build something real — something that creates value, earns customers and generates revenue.” 

“If you do that, you’ll always have options and leverage.”