Cleveland’s North Coast Ventures has raised another $38 million to invest in Midwest startup companies, after investing $60 million in 57 regional companies in the last few years. This VC fund focuses on scalable SaaS companies, so we thought we would profile a few of them for you to show you what firms like NCV are looking for in a software startup.
The world’s fastest growing tech hub is now Toronto. The Waterloo Corridor around Toronto has finally achieved its goal of creating a tech hub growing even past planned metrics, with $2.8 billion invested into local startups in the last year, more than the last 10 years combined. This according to The Record, which reports that Toronto is now the world’s fastest growing tech hub.
May Mobility, one of Ann Arbor’s top mobility startups that created a self-driving shuttle, just closed an $83 million Series C round of funding led by Mirai Creation Fund II, a SPARX Group Co., Ltd. managed fund that focuses its support on high-growth, high-tech companies. New investors include Tokio Marine and Toyota Tsusho, with returning investors Toyota Ventures, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Cyrus Capital Partners, 1843 Capital, BMW i Ventures, and Bay Lake Ventures.
Columbus fintech Lower, launched in 2014, has had an amazing year, with nearly 1,000 employees added in 2021 and a Series A round raised of $100 million, a record for the state of Ohio.
Boomerang Catapult has just announced a significant investment in Uru Sports, a Traverse City, Michigan, startup that has created a global digital network connecting athletes to resources, opportunities, and one another. Boomerang adds Uru Sports to its portfolio of high-potential, Traverse City-based companies.
Ever since Drive Capital was founded by a partnership between local and Silicon Valley VCs, Columbus has taken off as a center for insurtech and healthtech startups. Forbes now calls it “the #1 city for startups and the top remerging city for venture capital.” The traditional presence of insurance companies in the region has even encouraged many healthtech startups to move headquarters to the region. Columbus has experienced tremendous growth in 2021 and is earning its own star on the map as a tech ecosystem.
Chicago minted 8 unicorn companies valued at over $1 billion in the first half of 2021 alone, bringing the total number of Chicago unicorns to 15. That number is rising quickly as the region expands the tech sector in logistics, AI, and healthtech.
Detroit continues its lead in the autonomous vehicle and electric vehicle space with new startups coming out every month to address pedestrian safety, in-vehicle AI-based connectivity, and more. As transportation, advanced manufacturing, last-mile logistics, and autonomous technologies advance, expect to see more government investment in these areas to secure Michigan’s future dominance of these markets. Detroit’s got skin in the game and is already investing in an autonomous test highway, multiple self-driving car test facilities, drone deliveries for automakers and the airport, and mobility-focused incubators to support startups across Detroit and the state.
Beringer Capital, a private equity firm specializing in media, marketing services, and technology, announced it has acquired a majority stake in Detroit-based crypto financial advice media outlet Benzinga for $20 million this week. Benzinga is a software-based financial media platform that delivers news, investment analytics, and market information to subscribers, and has really taken off during the recent crypto craze.
Skykick has announced $130 million in funding, which will allow the IT no-code and low codes cloud automation software firm to expand to Detroit, where VP of Engineering Bob Karaban is originally from. The company is hoping to expand its 13-person team by hiring 30 additional engineers and introducing a new role, VP of IT Security.
