Micruity Raises $20M Series A to Modernize Retirement Income Infrastructure
Micruity, a Great North Ventures portfolio company, has raised a $20 million Series A round led by Rebalance Capital and Nationwide Ventures, with participation from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian), Collab Capital, State Street Investment Management, TIAA Ventures, and continued support from several […]
How OCN (OneCarNow.com) Turned a Ride-Hailing Problem into a Fintech Revolution
For Mexico’s thousands of ride-hail drivers, the roadblock isn’t demand. It’s access. Drivers are under-served in a ride-hailing industry already worth more than $3.5 billion and projected to grow steadily in the years ahead. The original concept for OneCarNow (OCN) was a peer-to-peer rental marketplace connecting car owners and short-term renters. Within a few months, […]
Great North Ventures Leads $2M Seed Round for NROC Security to Secure Employee Use of GenAI
Minneapolis and New York – September 29, 2025 – Great North Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, today announced it is leading a $2 million seed funding round for NROC Security, an innovative AI security company headquartered in New York and Helsinki, Finland. Additional investors in the round include Icebreaker.vc and Hannu Turunen (cofounder of […]
Pear Commerce + Pinterest: A Breakthrough in CPG Advertising
We’ve been fans of Eric Martell since he first landed in Minnesota. From the beginning, it was clear he had a rare mix of technical depth, product vision, and leadership grit. After helping build Gener8tor’s local presence, he and Alex Wyler co-founded Pear Commerce—a company born out of frustration with how broken CPG advertising had […]
Branch: A fintech growth story powered by instant payments
Branch has made instant payments a core workforce benefit, pairing capital-efficient growth with a mission to give working Americans quicker, easier access to earnings. Transformative workforce payment solutions don’t happen overnight. They’re built through a relentless focus on solving real problems for working Americans. Branch, a fintech led by founder and CEO Atif Siddiqi helps […]
‘Embedded Everywhere’: Tim Li on the future of lending, AI, and VC scrutiny
Tim Li is a fintech veteran with two decades of experience working at the intersection of banking and technology. After earning a master’s in engineering and building microprocessors at Intel, he pivoted to financial services in the early 2000s, joining JPMorgan Chase to help launch its first digital banking platforms. As the financial crisis hit […]
From Frustration to 1109% Revenue Growth: The WithMe Inc. Story
It all started with Jonathan Treble facing a problem everyone can relate to. More than a decade ago, he had trouble printing concert tickets. That frustration led him to start a new company in 2014 that evolved into providing tech-enabled services for apartment buildings. As CEO, he’s grown WithMe Inc. to become a highly successful, […]
HLRBO ‘Unlocks Land’ and Sees Growth Surge 240%
In March 2024, when Great North Ventures took the lead in an investment round of $1.6 million in HLRBO (Hunting Land Rentals By Owner), the company already had shown promising growth, with 57,000 users. Its platform is a marketplace that connects hunters and landowners. Fast forward, HLRBO now boasts 143,000 users. That’s a growth rate […]
The ‘GoDaddy of lending’: How LendAPI enables embedded finance at scale
Fintech startups are known for slick user experiences, but building them can be a major hurdle. Founders often have to stitch together a web of KYC/KYB systems, underwriting logic, compliance workflows, and loan origination tools — with limited capital and no backend infrastructure. Some are turning to platform solutions like LendAPI to speed up time […]
Featured.com Acquires Help A Reporter Out (HARO)
We’re excited to share a major milestone from one of our portfolio companies — Featured.com has acquired Help A Reporter Out (HARO) from Cision. Originally launched in 2008, HARO became the go-to platform for journalists seeking expert sources, and for professionals eager to share their insights with the media. Now, as AI-generated content floods the […]