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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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An Interview with Seth Derner, Founder of Lincoln-Based (sort of) Vivayic
In a phone interview with Seth Derner, the founder of Vivayic, I discovered something that is truly out of the ordinary. It wasn’t the fact that Vivayic was ranked exactly number 5000 on the Inc. 5000 list for 2019. It wasn’t that a rancher’s kid from Wheeler County, Nebraska had started a customized skill assessment/training…
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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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ZAF Energy Systems Has a Big Month
In early October, ZAF Energy Systems of Joplin, Missouri announced an agreement to deploy their next generation nickel-zinc (NiZn) battery system in a United States Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile ground facility. This was a significant achievement. However, it was just the beginning of a big month for ZAF. This week, the company announced a…
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Silicon Prairie Podcasts: A List
In honor of the IO Summit, which was born out of the IO Podcast, Silicon Prairie News has compiled a list of some of our favorite podcasts from the Silicon Prairie: The Inside Outside Podcast – http://insideoutside.io/ – With over 168 episodes bringing together entrepreneurship and corporate innovation, this podcast is a regional leader in…
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Funding Round Up: Week of September 30
The funding round up is an aggregation of a variety of sources, including Pitchbook, Form Ds, and Crunchbase. After building a list from these sources, we look for press releases and other mechanisms to provide more information. If you are would like to appear in the funding round up next week, please email us at…
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Funding Roundup: Week of September 23rd
In the interest of keeping tabs on fundings on the Silicon Prairie, this week we are providing a simple funding round-up. For this round-up, we used Form Ds, Pitchbook, and Crunchbase to provide us with a list of companies that received early stage funding, venture capital funding, or grants. We have provided information regarding the…