How the University of Minnesota is Embracing Startup Culture, EmpowerU, and MEDA $1M Challenge Winners
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2021! In our look back on the past year in our last newsletter, we talked about resilient startups, the pandemic, and capacity building. We reflected on our own efforts, and then we started thinking about the startup ecosystem as a whole. We’ve talked extensively about nonprofit organizations that support startups (and our support of […]
Building Capacity for Innovation
Entrepreneurship is a proven, capital-efficient way to build economic value and transform regions. It doesn’t just happen, though. Developing talent, supporting founders, and delivering capital and connections to promising ventures are all key. They are all necessary for driving innovation, which drives value creation. According to Brookings, “Annually, venture investment makes up only 0.2% of […]
$2M Startup Competition for Black Founders, Winning Startups to Watch, and Twin Cities Startup Week
It’s a wrap for Twin Cities Startup Week (TCSW), Minnesota’s largest annual startup event. How big is it? In 2019 the event attracted 17,000 people to over 200 sessions. This year, the event stretched nearly a month as it went virtual for the first time. Startup Competition Winners One of two big competitions during TCSW is the MN Startup […]
Giving in the Time of Coronavirus
With unemployment soaring, small businesses shuttering, and even some large chains withholding rent, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are reverberating through our communities. Many people wait on relief from the government in the form of stimulus payments and unemployment benefits. Businesses scramble to secure emergency loans, payroll support, and new ways to gain revenue. […]
Top 5 Stories of 2019, Clinician Nexus, and the gBETA Greater MN St. Cloud pitch night
Welcome back to the Great North Labs newsletter! 2019 has been a big year for us. We invested $5.7M in 10 startups, including six in Minnesota, three in Illinois, and one in Wisconsin. That brings our totals to date to $8M in 18 early-stage startups throughout the upper Midwest, and one in Colorado. Other than investing, the past year has […]
Top 5 Stories of 2019
1. The year started with a bang, as we closed our debut fund. Our $23.7M raise is one of the largest debut venture funds ever raised in the Midwest. You can read about it on our site, at VentureBeat, or here, here, here, here, here, and elsewhere. 2. Minnebar is one of the largest tech gatherings […]
Taking the Founders Pledge, Inhabitr, and gBETA Pitch Night
Happy Thanksgiving, and welcome back to the Great North Labs newsletter! This is the perfect time of year to reflect on what we are thankful for, and for giving back. We are most thankful for our investors, our advisors, and our portfolio companies, of course! They are the reasons we exist, work, and succeed. We […]
Founders Pledge: Support the Organizations that Support You
By Rob and Ryan Weber Where do startups come from, and how can we encourage more of them? Whether you believe in clustering or building a rainforest, one thing is for sure: startups don’t materialize out of nowhere, nor do they always succeed on their own. Importance of Startups A healthy local startup ecosystem drives […]