Another year of Midwest Startups City Rankings in the books! 📖

⏰ Midwest Minute 

Now for a very special rankings edition of the newsletter, written by our very own Sam Cavender!

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Midwest Startups and M25 recently published the newest edition of the Midwest Startups City Rankings—our annual data-driven benchmarking of the region’s startup ecosystems. For this year’s rankings, we collected data from 16 sources which used to score each of the 64 Midwest cities across 25 variables. For today’s newsletter, we’re sharing a little more about that underlying data.

One thing is clear: public data continues to be a goldmine for understanding these trends. For five of our sources, we turned to publicly available government data (including the Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Small Business Administration and the US Patent & Trademark Office). These datasets often highlight the strengths of smaller Midwest tech ecosystems. For example, while college towns may not score as highly as the perennial powerhouses on metrics like the Number of Startups, they excel in categories such as Educated Workforce, Labor Costs, and Cost of Living. Because of this, while they may not lead in startup volume, they often perform well in metrics like Startup Density. Major hubs can boast sheer quantity, but smaller ecosystems create environments where high concentrations (or should we say “corncentrations”? 🌽) of quality startup activity can flourish, and those environmental factors get quantified and tracked in government datasets. If you haven’t explored these public datasets lately, you’re missing out on a treasure trove of insights!

On the other hand, much of the data that highlights the strength of the top ranking ecosystems comes from non-government data aggregators such as Pitchbook. These metrics tend to reflect volume—Number of Startups, Number of VCs, Number of Big Exits/Raises, Capital Invested, Number of Angels, etc. Of these categories, the data for Big Raises (> $50M) is raising the bar and is always exciting to review, and even with only 12 new additions this year (compared to 28 the prior year) that still held true. Chicago had the most this year (six), Pittsburgh had the largest (Gecko Robotics & Abridge), and Ann Arbor’s May Mobility drove in yet another massive round!

Our goal with the Midwest Startup City Rankings remains the same: to deliver a clear, objective benchmark for stakeholders across the region. These rankings are made possible by the commitment of numerous organizations that collect and share the data that powers this project. We’re excited to share the results with you—we hope you dive into the numbers and see how your city stacks up this year!

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Let’s check out some of the latest deals that will help fuel next year’s rankings: More of the latest below. Minneapolis-based HistoSonics raised a $102M Series D. Chicago’s Amount raised a $30M round from Curql and existing investors. Mimecast has announced yet another acquisition of a Midwest-HQ’d company, this time Columbus-based Aware. Find more of the latest funding announcements below.

Have any insights into the Midwest ecosystem or a funding announcement to share? Want to share your hot 🔥 takes from this year’s rankings? Send us an email: [email protected] 

📰 Notable News

Exits

• Columbus-based Aware was acquired by Mimecast for an undisclosed amount

Startup Funding

• HistoSonics - $102M Series D led by Alpha Wave Global | Minneapolis

• Amount - $30M round from Curql and existing investors | Chicago

• Companion Protect - $20.25M Series A+ from investors | Kansas City

• P2H2 - $18M Series A led by Rev1 Ventures | Columbus

• Intramotev - $14M Series A co-led by Flybridge Capital and Alpaca VC | St. Louis

• ModelOp - $10M Series B led by Baird Capital | Chicago

• Grid Status - $8M round led by Energize Capital | Chicago

• Amulet - $5.8M Series A led by HealthX Ventures | Madison

• Definity - $4.5M Seed led by StageOne Ventures | Chicago

• Your Money Line - $4.5M Series A led by Allos Ventures | Indianapolis

• Rx Save Card - $1.7M Pre-Seed led by Distributed Ventures | Chicago

Other News

• Chicago crowned top Midwest city for startups, downstate Illinois climbing the rankings

• Omaha and Lincoln Gain Ground in 2024 Best of the Midwest: Startup City Rankings

• M25 rankings: Startup hubs are slowing; why KC could be losing ground to Midwest neighbors

• Midwest VCs launch Great Lakes Venture Capital Association

• 3 local startups get funding from Missouri Technology Corp.

• Illinois commits $20M to semiconductor startups

• BioSTL to use $6M in grants to boost workforce training

• Kin Insurance leads Chicago startups on this year’s Inc. 5000

• High Alpha launched their 2024 SaaS Benchmarks Survey

📆 Mark your Calendar

Need to fill your social calendar? We’ve scoured newsletters, scanned LinkedIn and found some of the latest tech + startup events in the region. Know of any upcoming events and want to share them? Send us an email: [email protected]