August: Great North Labs Startup Ecosystem Kickoff, ZAPinfo, and the necessity of advice and capital availability
Great North Labs’s August Update Fostering Midwest success means making guidance and capital available for tech startups Great North Labs got the front-page treatment in the Star Tribune Business section this Sunday. Former investment banker, consultant and corporate officer (and current business journalist) Lee Schafer talked about building successful tech companies with Ryan and Rob […]
July: Pitchly, ForwardFest, and Where to Invest in the Midwest
Great North Labs’s July Update Where to Invest in the Midwest At Great North Labs we are constantly making the case for investing in venture capital in the upper Midwest. Skepticism ranges from the size of the funds here, to the funding opportunities of the region, to the value of venture itself. GNL partner Pradip […]
Where to Invest in the Midwest: Venture Across Asset Classes
More than 8,000 venture-backed companies received a combined $85 billion in funding in 2017, representing the highest annual total since 2000.[i] As stocks, real estate investments, and venture capital reach record highs, what are investors thinking about where to invest? The answer depends on the type of investor: Large funds such as university endowments, pension […]
Digital Transformation Summit, July 25th in Minneapolis
This invite-only event has some impressive speakers lined up, and should be excellent for networking with local execs. Great North Labs is an organizer of the event, and Ryan Weber will be speaking. Request an invite here. From the press release: Digerati.org is a national platform connecting digital leaders with networking and education […]
June: Silicon Lakes, FactoryFix, and the Digital Transformation Summit
Welcome to Silicon Lakes! The legacy of cornfields and flyover states taints the national perception of the modern Midwest. It’s led the area to be overlooked and under-capitalized by investors who paper the coasts with venture dollars. While the name “Silicon Prairie” attempts to characterize the tech innovation occurring in America’s heartland, it’s a broad […]
Putting the “Silicon” in Silicon Lakes
By Pradip Madan, Ryan Weber, and Rob Weber In the US, several tech ecosystems have become centers of tech innovation in addition to the much-vaunted Silicon Valley. Silicon Alley is in NYC; Austin is known as Silicon Hills; Silicon Mountain includes Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins; Silicon Forest is in the […]
Digital Manufacturing and Logistics
Can the Upper Midwest drive digital innovation in manufacturing and logistics? Legacy Manufacturing Hubs Manufacturing and farming ecosystems in the US and around the world have developed around a combination of the following ingredients: raw materials (minerals, crops), energy (electric, hydro, wind, solar), logistics (bays/ports, rivers, roads), talent/labor pools, and viable operating economics. A combination […]
Mid-Market Grocer Growth: Organic, Seeded or Grafted?
Amazon (mkt cap ~$760B) recently paid more for Whole Foods ($13.7B) than the balance sheets of many mid-market grocers. This frames the obvious question for all grocers: how can your business compete long-term? This is an especially challenging question for the smaller-cap grocers. Large companies such as Walmart (mkt cap ~$250B) and Target (mkt cap […]
May: Team Genius, IoT, and the Future of Everything
The Industrial Internet is the future- and it’s being built now. IoT and Analytics are transforming industry, and who know industry like the upper Midwest? Add to the decades of institutional experience a community of educated tech adopters, then just add water (liquid capital) and stir. BAM! Forget Silicon Valley, this is Silicon Lakes. Read […]
March: Exponential Tech, the “Goldilocks Zone”, and Minnebar 13
Exponential Technology Intel co-founder Gordon Moore famously predicted that computing power would grow exponentially by doubling every two years (“Moore’s Law”). The implications of such rapidly improving computing power are now evident all around us, but back when Gordon predicted such growth it was hard to imagine a future with such incredible computing power. In […]