Stay up to date with Great North Ventures here! With execution as our North Star we fund, build and scale innovative tech companies.
Quick Ask
Deal Flow – We are actively investing out of our $41 million second fund and welcome any opportunities that you think fits our investment thesis
What’s New
- Great North Ventures has added two new Associates, Joseph Daher and Grant Gibson
- We hosted several portfolio companies at Target Field to watch the Minnesota Twins
Left to Right: Ryan Weber, Rob Weber, Joseph Daher, Grant Gibson
Fund and Portfolio News
Revolutionizing Medical AI Development: Flywheel Announces $54 Million in Series D Funding led by Novalis LifeSciences & NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm) – June 2023
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Branch Powers the Uber Pro Debit Card and Brings Instant Disbursements and Rewards to Gig Workers – October 2022
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Acquired by Human Powered Health – January 2023
Read More
GNV In The Community
- May31 : Hosted Twins Game | Minneapolis, MN
- June14 : Pitch Breakfast | Charlotte, NC
- June 20-21 : Gener8tor Onramp Workforce/Education Conference | St. Paul MN
- June 21-22 : Gener8tor Onramp Insurance Conference | St. Paul MN
Content on Execution
- Catch Ryan and Rob’s interview with Twin Cities Business
- CEO of WithMe, Jonathan Treble, Talks Revolutionizing Multifamily Amenities, Rebranding and Recruiting Rockstars
Welcome back to the Great North Ventures newsletter! We have grant funding news, as well as our monthly roundup of portfolio company updates and jobs.
Portfolio company Flywheel has earned a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its work making data accessible to medical researchers!
Flywheel is the leading data management platform for biomedical research and collaboration. According to managing partner Pradip Madan, “Flywheel’s work on data management and collaboration in life sciences and clinical research has created a data management powerhouse accelerating the bench-to-bedside journey of numerous initiatives.”
The $829,000 grant will provide a centralized, cloud-based research infrastructure to an international cohort of researchers led by King’s College of London, and support research on the neurodevelopmental health of children growing up in poverty and other adverse environments in low- and middle-income countries.
“We’re looking forward to leveraging Flywheel not only to make data easily accessible to our neuroimaging partners around the world, but also to develop shared analytic pipelines and maintain consistency and compatibility,” said Professor Steven Williams, PhD, Professor of Neuroimaging Sciences at King’s College London, and a principal investigator on the project.
“This project will ultimately build the knowledge and analytic capacity of LMIC researchers, allowing them to further optimize neuro-focused interventions in their settings.”
Great North Ventures is Hiring!
We have 2 positions open, including a Venture Capital Analyst and an Executive Assistant.
Interested in a remote-first, innovation-centric culture in one of the top up-and-coming markets of an exciting industry? Apply at the links above.
Are you a founder worried about managing growth through a downturn?
In our latest episode of Execution is King, we talked with Orazio Buzza, Founder and CEO of Fooda. Orazio shared his approach to manage growth in the face of unpredictable variables. He outlines a milestone approach that works when forecasting fails and headwinds start to blow, and helps keep expenses from outpacing revenues as your business grows.
Listen to the full episode here:
https://lnkd.in/gMNZHBdK
Portfolio News
Dispatch Expands Its Last-Mile Delivery Service Into California and New York
Great North Ventures invests locally
Good Design Awards Highlight Connected Devices
NoiseAware Introduces CrowdControl for Elevated-Occupancy Detection
Madison startup that helps consumers navigate food allergen ‘minefield’ explores new tech horizons [Allergy Amulet]
Improving carriers’ cash flow with Branch — Taking the Hire Road
79 Open Positions
See all open positions on the Great North Ventures careers page
Dispatch is hiring for 9 positions
Structural is hiring for 1 position
FactoryFix is hiring for 5 positions
Pitchly is hiring for 1 position
PrintWithMe is hiring for 18 positions
Parallax is hiring for 3 positions
Branch is hiring for 18 positions
Inhabitr is hiring for 1 position
PartySlate is hiring for 3 positions
Flywheel is hiring for 4 positions
Skillit is hiring for 1 position
NextGem is hiring for 2 positions
Backhouse Brands is hiring for 1 position
Yardstik is hiring for 3 positions
Micruity is hiring for 3 positions
Omnia Fishing is hiring for 6 positions
Welcome back to the Great North Ventures newsletter! (Sign up here!) We are excited for the launch of our new podcast and Fund II investing!
Our new podcast is live! Check out “Execution is King” on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Join me, Josef Siebert, and either Ryan or Rob Weber as we interview founders, investors, and ecosystem builders to uncover insights and best practices for the next generation of global startup founders.
As mentioned in our last newsletter, Fund II is now open for business! We have officially made our first investment outside of our own venture studio projects. Early-stage founders, check out our Founders page for criteria and to get in touch.
Portfolio Updates
Skillit is new to the portfolio! Skillit is a jobs and recruitment platform that matches skills-tested carpenters with great construction firms.
Flywheel has raised a $22M Series C round from 8VC, Great North Ventures, and others. Flywheel will use raised capital to acquired St. Louis-based Radiologics.
TeamGenius raises $1.1 million to expand its athlete development platform
Airbnb partner Migo taps NoiseAware for noise-monitoring solution
PrintWithMe Announces New Platform for Expansion, WithMe, Inc.
FactoryFix Successful Series “Factory Made” Offers Viewers Peak into American Manufacturing
Hotels open the door to the next evolution in room service [2ndKitchen]
Open Positions
See all open positions on the Great North Ventures careers page
Great North Venturesis hiring 6 interns for Summer 2022
Dispatch is hiring for 41 positions
FactoryFixis hiring for 7 positions
TeamGeniusis hiring for 1 position
2ndKitchenis hiring for 5 positions
PrintWithMe ishiring for 13 positions
Parallaxis hiring for 9 positions
Branch is hiring for 14 positions
Inhabitr is hiring for 3 positions
Clinician Nexusis hiring for 1 position
PartySlateis hiring for 1 position
Flywheelis hiring for 2 positions
Welcome to the Great North Ventures newsletter!
Yes, you read that correctly: Great North Ventures. We have had some big news come out lately, and the name change to Great North Ventures better reflects our organization.
We Launched a Venture Studio
The Great North Venture Studio co-creates startups to tackle focused market opportunities. We pair with talented founders and operators to generate 1-2 startups every year. The first startup is a consumer app in the collectible sports card trading space.
Read more about the venture studio in our announcement.
The ideal companies that will launch from the studio are quick-to-market, digital products focused on health care and life sciences, financial services, consumers, real estate, transport and logistics, workforce development and education, and business-to-business.
New Name, New Venture Studio, and New Fund
These changes are all connected to our investing. As we complete our final investments from our inaugural fund and start investing from Fund II, we have evolved our model.
By co-creating ventures, we will produce unique deals for investors, and unique opportunities for talented operators.
By widening our geographic focus to invest in founders wherever they are, we are open to more quality early-stage opportunities and founders.
By changing our name, we reflect these changes from our Fund I model to our new investment strategy.
Stay tuned for more changes as we update our content and presence across online platforms, to clarify and better serve investors, founders, and talented operators.
Portfolio News
SiteKick is new to the Great North Ventures portfolio! SiteKick is a construction site monitoring and reporting software platform intended to effortlessly monitor and report on critical construction site activities.
Allergy Amulet closed a $4.1M round of funding. “The world’s smallest & fastest consumer food allergen sensor” will officially launch in late 2021.
Flywheel‘s CTO, Gunnar Schaefer, did a Q&A with the Tech Tribune where he talks about working in medical imaging at Stanford, realizing a huge problem presented to researchers, and how Flywheel solves it.
Job Board
Dispatch is hiring
Territory Sales Manager- Las Vegas, NV/REMOTE
Territory Sales Manager- Phoenix, AZ/REMOTE
Territory Sales Manager- Tucson, AZ/REMOTE
Territory Sales Manager – West Region – REMOTE (OR)
Territory Sales Manager – West Region – REMOTE(UT)
Territory Sales Manager – Mid Atlantic – REMOTE
Territory Sales Manager – South Atlantic – REMOTE
Software Engineering Manager – REMOTE
Vice President of Product – REMOTE
Business Development Intern – REMOTE
Structuralis hiring
Director of Sales – Twin Cities, MN or Indianapolis, IN, or REMOTE
Enterprise Sales Consultant – West Coast or East Coast
Implementation Specialist – Twin Cities, MN or Indianapolis, IN
FactoryFixis hiring
Senior Full Stack Developer – Chicago, IL or Madison, WI or REMOTE
Infrastructure Developer – DevOps – Madison, WI
Account Executive – Chicago, IL
TeamGeniusis hiring
Vice President, Marketing – Minneapolis, MN or REMOTE
Lead Engineer, Mobile Development – Minneapolis, MN
2ndKitchenis hiring
Backend Developer – New York City, Chicago, or REMOTE
Frontend Developer – New York City, Chicago, or REMOTE
Account Executive, Hotels – Chicago, IL
PrintWithMe ishiring
Regional Multifamily Housing Sales Director (East Coast) – Philadelphia, PA
Regional Multifamily Housing Sales Director (East Coast) – Washington, D.C.
Regional Multifamily Housing Sales Director (West Coast) – Sacramento, CA
National Account Director, Multifamily Housing – Chicago, IL
Director, Demand Generation – Chicago, IL
Inside Sales Manager, Training – Chicago, IL
Strategy Intern (MBA) – Chicago, IL
IT Network Support Specialist – Chicago, IL
Technical Support Specialist – Chicago, IL
Inventory and Logistics Specialist (Part Time) – Chicago, IL
Shipping and Receiving Technician (Part Time) – Chicago, IL
Parallaxis hiring
Customer Success Consultant (CSC) – Edina, MN
Customer Success Specialist (CSS) – Edina, MN
Branch is hiring
Senior Android Engineer – REMOTE
Data Science Engineer – REMOTE
Sr. Software Engineer – Minneapolis, MN or REMOTE
Inhabitr is hiring
Chief Growth Officer/Head of B2C Growth – Chicago, IL
Sales and Customer Experience Associate – Chicago, IL
Clinician Nexusis hiring
Customer Success Manager – Minneapolis, MN
NoiseAwareis hiring
Customer Advocate – Dallas, TX or REMOTE
Strategic Account Manager – Dallas/Austin/Denver or REMOTE
Cloud Solutions Architect – REMOTE
Front End Developer – Dallas/Austin, TX or REMOTE
Senior IT Specialist – Dallas/Austin, TX or REMOTE
Senior Demand Generation Manager – REMOTE
Senior Partner Marketing Manager – REMOTE
Scrum Master- Dallas/Austin, TX or REMOTE
Director of Product Management- Austin/Dallas, TX or REMOTE
Software Product Manager- Dallas/Austin, TX or REMOTE
PartySlate is hiring
Account Executive- Chicago, IL
Flywheelis hiring
Director of Marketing, Demand Generation – REMOTE
Frontend Engineer- REMOTE
Platform Engineer (DevOps)- REMOTE
Welcome back to the Great North Labs newsletter!
With so many great startups getting acquired or going IPO lately, one wonders: What do founders do when they score these big windfalls?
How Do Founders Spend Their Cash?
Rob Weber was curious, so he asked other successful founders from the region about their post-exit strategies. Do they do the kind of flashy things coastal entrepreneurs do? You know, like buy an island or a 100-foot yacht or something?
From Lamborghinis to Hamm’s beer signs, traveling the world to giving back to their local entrepreneurial communities, these founders have quite the stories.
Read the full article in BuiltIn Chicago,
“The Weird and Wonderful Things Midwest Founders do After They’ve Had a Big Exit“.
How University of St. Thomas Raises Up Startup Entrepreneurship
The University of St. Thomas (UST) has ~10,000 students, with over 34,000 business school alumni around the world. Recently, UST announced the end of their full-time MBA offering. At first glance, that may seem like a blow to the future of entrepreneurial development at the university. We dug into the details to get a better of picture of what’s going on at the university to support innovation, startups, and entrepreneurs.
Our Senior Analyst, Mike Schulte (JD/MBA ’17), shared his experience and insights into the university including these highlights:
- The Aristotle Fund provides real investing experience to students
- Servant Leadership creates ethical behavior in entrepreneurs
- The Schulze School of Entrepreneurship pays students to work at early-stage startups
- gBeta St. Thomas program supports alumni founders
- Mentor Externships give you a dose of the day-to-day reality, before you’re committed to it
- Students gain real consulting experience with real clients
Events
Here is a mix of upcoming events for investors, founders, and/or ecosystem supporters. All events listed are virtual unless otherwise noted.
- Mar. 10th, Minnesota Ventures: Science and Deep Tech Early Investment Opportunities. Limited-access event by UMN Technology Commercialization Venture Center.
- Mar. 17th, Wisconsin Tech Summit. “The goal of the Wisconsin Tech Summit is to bring together major companies and emerging firms in a setting that allows them to meet and explore likely business relationships around technology needs and innovation.”
- Mar. 23-25th, midwest.tech. “One-on-one meetings for Midwest-based or Midwest-linked startup founders, VCs, angel investors, incubators, and accelerators – focused on Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A stages”.
- Apr. 27-28th, InvestMidwest Venture Capital Forum. “InvestMidwest highlights startups in the Midwest region with the most promise for success that are currently seeking Series A or B funding of $1M to $20M.”
Portfolio News
Flywheel is new to the Great North Labs portfolio! Flywheel is the leading research data platform that provides the tools needed for data import, automated curation, image processing, machine learning workflows, and secure collaboration. By leveraging cloud scalability and automating research workflows, Flywheel helps organizations scale research data and analysis, improve scientific collaboration and accelerate discoveries.
Allergy Amulet launched their product! “The world’s smallest & fastest consumer food allergen sensor” quickly sold out. Sign up on the Allergy Amulet website to receive info on future release dates.
“Flywheel raises $15 mn co-led by Beringea and 8VC”. Flywheel’s series-B round included Great North Labs as well as well-known global VCs.
“Venture capitalists invested a record $1.9B in Minnesota in 2020”. The $1.9B in VC included EmpowerU’s recent raise, along with Bright Health, Arctic Wolf, and Revol Greens.
See our Job Board
June Newsletter
Demystifying Startup HR
Head of Finance & Fund Administration- Venture Capital Firm (Remote)
Demystifying Startup HR
3 Portfolio Companies Make Inc. 5000 + Quicklly & Instacart Expand
3 Portfolio Companies Ranked on The Inc. 5000 List
iraLogix closes $22M + Branch expands with Uber
iraLogix closes $22M Series C
Flywheel lands Gates Foundation grant
Venture Capital Analyst
Orazio Buzza, Founder and CEO of Fooda – on Episode 13, “Execution is King”
$40M Fund II Raised!
Eric Martell, Founder of Pear Commerce: Episode 13, Execution is King
Great North Ventures Raises $40 Million Fund II
Investment Thesis: Fund II Strategy
Investment Theme: Community-Driven Applications
Investment Theme: Digital Transformation Through AI
Investment Theme: Solving Labor Problems
Trends in the Gig Economy + Work in the Metaverse
Portfolio raises $125M + talking fundraising with Branch CEO
Omnia Fishing closes $4M round, joins Great North portfolio!
Atif Siddiqi, Founder/CEO of Branch: Episode 11, Execution is King
Michael Martocci, CEO and Founder of SwagUp: Episode 10, Execution is King
Yardstik new to portfolio, closes $8M Series A
First venture studio startup comes out of stealth!
Insights for founders from a data guru, + FactoryFix raises a Series A!
Una Fox: Episode 9, Execution is King
Start With a Mobile App, Not a Website
2ndKitchen acquired by SoftBank-backed REEF + advice from an early Googler
Joe Sriver, 4giving: Episode 8, Execution is King
2ndKitchen Acquired by REEF
Venture studio startup jobs + advice for founders from founders
Best Advice from the Great North Annual Event: Episode 7, Execution is King
Newsletter: Do you fit our investing themes?
Jonathan Treble, PrintWithMe: Episode 6, Execution is King
Anna Mason, Revolution: Episode 5, Execution is King
Mynul Khan, FieldNation: Episode 4, Execution is King
Nick Moran, New Stack Ventures: Episode 3, Execution is King
Molly Pyle, Center on Rural Innovation (CORI): Episode 2, Execution is King
Justin Kaufenberg, Rally Ventures: Execution is King Episode 1
Newsletter: “Podcast Launched: Execution is King!”
“Execution is King” – the Great North Ventures Podcast
Newsletter: Fund II is open for business!
Unlocking the Potential of Anonymized Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Data
Fund II is open for Business!
Mike Schulte Promoted to Venture Partner
New Name + New Venture Studio
Great North Launches Startup Studio
We Don’t Need No [full-time MBA] Education
How the University of Minnesota is Embracing Startup Culture
Top Stories of 2020, iraLogix, and LaunchMN Calls for Mentors
Building Capacity for Innovation
Seizing Opportunity in a Recession, Allergy Amulet, and Twin Cities Startup Week
Recessionary times, a record-setting IPO, and Minnesota’s Resilient Startups
Minnesota's Resilient Startups
July 4th, Equitable American Dream-ing, and Robots Diagnosing COVID
Jumpstart, the Startup School, and Branch Wins a Webby!
COVID-19 Trends, the Great North response, and our Founders Survey
Giving in the Time of Coronavirus
COVID-19 Resources for Startups, State-by-State
COVID-19, the CARES Act, and startups stepping up
New Business Preservation Act
Digital Future Boardroom, PartySlate, and The Lean Startup School
Great North Labs’s Startup Summit 2020
Great North Labs's Startup Summit 2020
World Economic Forum, NoiseAware, and the Startup School reboot
Great North Labs at the World Economic Forum 2020 in Davos
Top 5 Stories of 2019
Taking the Founders Pledge, Inhabitr, and gBETA Pitch Night
Founders Pledge: Support the Organizations that Support You
BETA Showcase, Greater MN, and Launch MN comes to St. Cloud
7 Places to Spot Us at Startup Week
The Greater MN Meetup, Parallax, and Exponential Medicine
Greater MN at the big show, Neela Mollgaard heads Launch MN, and Misty’s roadtrip.
Talking VC, tech kids, and Forge North’s Horizon
June: Great North Labs’s first fund raised!
May: Innovation Ecosystems, SingularityU Kickoff, and PrintWithMe
April: Minnebar Recap, ZenLord Pro, and Supporting Entrepreneurs
MinneBar 14 Recap
Dispatch and 2ndKitchen claim Tech Madness titles
Minnesota Innovation Collaborative
March: Minnebar, Hockey + Hustlers, and Innovation Workshops
Great North Labs at CES
Dec.-Jan.: Top Posts from 2018, pepr, Glowe, and Misty Robotics
Carried Interest: Top Posts from 2018
Oct.-Nov.: Singularity University, Exponential Tech, and the State of Innovation
July: Pitchly, ForwardFest, and Where to Invest in the Midwest
Digital Transformation Summit, July 25th in Minneapolis
June: Silicon Lakes, FactoryFix, and the Digital Transformation Summit
Putting the “Silicon” in Silicon Lakes
Digital Manufacturing and Logistics
May: Team Genius, IoT, and the Future of Everything
IoT 3.0
Healthcare Innovation
March: Exponential Tech, the “Goldilocks Zone”, and Minnebar 13
February: Team Expansion, Dispatch, and Startup School Events
Great North Labs Newsletter – December 2017
A Letter To My Younger Self
Great North Labs Newsletter
Great North Labs Featured on Tech.mn
Great North Labs Featured in St Cloud Times
Great North Labs – Featured on BizJournals.com
