Nebraska startups raised the most venture capital in a single year in state history in 2025, totalling nearly $530 million in investment across 66 companies. Lincoln-based CompanyCam’s Series C funding round last summer constituted almost 80% of those dollars.  

Invest Nebraska released 2025 venture capital data in its 2026 Nebraska Venture Capital Report, which is based on sources including SEC filings and financial market database platforms Pitchbook and Crunchbase. Invest Nebraska is a nonprofit venture development organization that partners with the Nebraska Department of Economic Development to support entrepreneurs.

The Invest Nebraska team shared additional findings from its newest report with SPN, providing a more in-depth breakdown of the deals that occurred in Nebraska in 2025. 

Invest Nebraska said they “scrub” the data they pull for these reports in order to better reflect what they can confirm as VC deals. That means their analysis does not include individual angel investors or investments that aren’t “VC-backed.” 

According to Invest Nebraska, Nebraska startups participated in 66 VC deals in 2025 resulting in a total of $527.9 million in funding. The median amount for all Nebraska VC rounds raised in 2025 was $450,000. Fifty-six of the 66 deals were pre-seed and seed stage investments. 

The top three industries with the most capital raised were B2B software, agtech and health care. 

Construction tech startup CompanyCam led the pack with its $415 million Series C fundraising round in August 2025. The second-largest deal was a later stage $25 million round by medtech and robotics startup Virtual Incision. 

CompanyCam Founder and CEO Luke Hansen said he was thankful for the early support he and his company received from local investors, organizations and individuals in the community to help CompanyCam become Nebraska’s first startup unicorn. Among those he mentioned were Nelnet, Invest Nebraska, Nebraska Angels and Ben Williamson. 

“It was great to be able to deliver a return on an investment they made a long time ago, and hopefully that helps the ecosystem,” Hansen said. “That people are reinvesting (capital) in existing funds, new funds, new companies — because it does matter.”

According to Invest Nebraska, Nebraska ranked 44th in the nation for VC capital raised in 2024. In 2025, Nebraska moved up to 30th. California ranked first with around $210 billion raised across 4,602 deals.

For neighboring states: 

• Colorado ranked fifth with around $7.5 billion raised
• Missouri ranked 26th with $855.9 million raised
• Kasas ranked 31st with $436.0 million raised
• Iowa ranked 43rd with $124.2 million raised
• South Dakota ranked 47th with $25.2 million raised

More from the 2026 Nebraska Venture Capital Report

The 2026 Nebraska Venture Capital Report provides a snapshot of VC deals that occurred in the state in 2025 and an overview of deal trends from 2012-2025. 

“Market headwinds remain somewhat unchanged year over year — geopolitical uncertainty, high interest rates, valuation concerns and a slow exit market — but investor interest in Nebraska remains strong,” Invest Nebraska CEO Dan Hoffman said in the report. 

“New investors continue to enter our budding ecosystem, driven by a powerful cycle: more pre-seed and seed stage investments leading to more follow-on rounds, attracting more investors regardless of geography,” he added.

From 2022 to 2023, VC funding in Nebraska dipped noticeably: from $498.7 million raised in 2022 to $160.9 million in 2023. In 2024, the number dropped even further: $77.4 million was raised that year. 

Invest Nebraska investment analyst Ben Hohensee said 2023 and 2024 consisted mostly of pre-seed and seed stage deals of smaller values. For the spikes in 2022 and 2025, he said, those years were characterized by one to two deals accounting for a “big chunk” of what was raised. 

“The reason for the dips in 2023 and 2024 boils down to the sizes of the funding rounds,” Hohensee said in an email to SPN. “If you look at the deals completed across the last three years, we’ve actually had a lot of steady dealflow with little variance.”

In the timeframe from 2012-2025 depicted in the report, the total number of VC deals in Nebraska reflects more early stage deals with smaller values rather than later stage deals with higher values. Yet, a majority of the total capital raised comes from these later stage deals. 

For example, of the 521 VC deals reported since 2012, less than 100 were Series A or later. However, rounds at Series A or later contributed over 80% of the total funds raised from 2012-2025. 

In this same 2012-2025 time frame, the top industries that have raised the most VC investment in Nebraska are B2B software; hardware, robotics and advanced manufacturing; and health care, life sciences and medical devices. 

Hohensee said the categories they established for organizing VC deals — such as agtech versus life sciences or robotics versus medical devices — aren’t always exact as the startups can dabble across industries and solution types. 

For example, Kearney-based startup Fast Forward and its Series A round in 2025 were mentioned under the “hardware” section of the report. However, the startup offers both software and hardware solutions for mapping power lines.

Guiding forces in the ecosystem

“Research consistently shows that small, innovative businesses are the engines of long-term job creation and economic development — and this report tells that story: a compelling narrative of new opportunities created for Nebraskans,” Hoffman said. 

Recent developments and leading forces in the ecosystem listed in the 2026 Nebraska Venture Capital Report include the launch of a second fund by agtech venture capital firm Grit Road Partners, the work of college VC funds and the impact of those affiliated with sportstech startup Hudl in generating other companies and careers. 

A focus of the 2026 report is charting data over the years behind Nebraska’s Business Innovation Act. The BIA originated in 2011 with the goal of encouraging entrepreneurship through grant and investment offerings. The latest impact numbers cited are from the findings of last year’s BIA analysis report done through the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Bureau of Business Research.

You can read the 2026 Nebraska Venture Capital Report and previous reports by Invest Nebraska here.