iraLogix is a technology company offering fully paperless, white label, IRA record keeping and technology solutions.

iraLogix is a Great North Ventures Fund I portfolio company.

The company announced on July 13th, 2022 a $22 million Series C raise led by a group of individual financial technology investors represented by Matt Vettel and Nick Cayer, along with participation from Great North Ventures, Hybrid Capital, Roan Capital, University Growth Fund, Trog Hawley Capital, Circadian Ventures, and Riverfront Ventures.

Read more here.
Visit the iraLogix website.

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.

Source: Minne Inno

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

Today it was announced that last quarter’s drop in GDP was the second largest ever recorded. Overall US economic output fell by 9.5%. This dire news comes on the heels of fantastic news for the MN tech startup community: the largest IPO from a Minnesota company ever, Jamf’s $468M IPO and $4.7B market cap.

Minnesota’s Resilient Startups

In good times, founding a startup is hard. Being a successful operator is even harder. Add in the challenging times and limited resources of a recession, and you wind up with a pressure cooker that will test teams, products, and people to their limits.

There is a history of successful companies weathering recessions, however. While some startups crumble under the pressure, others become diamonds. We compiled a list of Minnesota’s Resilient Startups to showcase some of our state’s startup successes that not only weathered tough times, but were formed during recessions.

Leveraging Resilient Founders

It’s no coincidence that many of our operating partners appear on that list. We believe that successful founders and operators make the best early stage investors because they’ve had to scale an emerging technology company before. Leveraging that experience to identify, invest in, and support startups is what makes Great North Labs unique compared to most seed funds.

Tech.MN recently interviewed Managing Partner Rob Weber about his own experience as a founder of a NativeX, which was founded in the wake of the dot-com bust. Rob also talks about what led him and Ryan Weber to found Great North Labs.

Managing Partner Rob Weber shares the vision of Great North Labs and the impetus for its founding on the Tech.MN podcast.

“For us, I have gotten to know a lot of other founders in Minnesota and the surrounding region and many of them, either through their business model or whatever, required more early-stage capital than we did. And I heard about how terrible it was for them to raise money the last 10-20 years.

I just thought, ‘We can do this. We can invest in these companies and we can make money doing so.’

And that’s what compelled me to write checks. It was almost a feeling of obligation. We got a little bit of capital, and great mentorship, from these guys from Silicon Valley and I just thought, ‘We could do this here.’” – Rob Weber

Even with the challenges of a recession, we are positioned to continue contributing to a cycle of growth. We continue to build capacity in the innovation ecosystem by cultivating, capitalizing, and contributing to startup successes in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.

Events

Here are some interesting events rounding out the summer lineup.

Aug. 5th is the 2nd workshop for the Startup Course 01 – St. Cloud Location series. This is a reminder for all students who began the series on July 29th!

Aug. 6th, 2020 Drive-in Double Feature: Minnedemo34 + OnRamp Insurance Accelerator Premiere Night. Attend this event at the MN State Fairgounds, Pizza Luce, or virtually. Featuring the OnRamp Insurance Accelerator’s 5-company pitch event, plus Minnedemo presentations, and music.

Aug. 12th is the virtual OnRamp Healthcare Conference. “The conference highlights innovations disrupting health care and the future of medicine, the health care leaders making such innovations possible and how new technologies and business models will reinvent the industry.”

Aug. 13-20th is ForwardFest in Madison, WI. This year’s event is virtual and free.“Join fellow entrepreneurs, nerds, geeks, hackers, foodies, and creatives from the Midwest in an 8-day celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Sept. 7 – 25, 2020 is Twin Cities Startup Week. This is the biggest annual tech startup event in Minnesota. 2020’s event is virtual, and will be spread over a month with sessions, networking, and education for founders, investors, and innovation-minded professionals.

Portfolio News

“CCRCs to participate in $3 million test of robots to curb resident loneliness, apathy”– Misty is encouraging social interaction in retirement homes in this study with Misty Robotics.

“The Lowdown on Discounts”– OSU campus publication featuring discounts from Plyo.

“PrintWithMe Announces National Partnership With Invesco Real Estate”– PrintWithMe agreement with 28th largest apartment owner in the US.

“Property risk increases as booking behaviour changes” – Problem trend, with success stories from NoiseAware.

Job Board

Dispatch is hiring a Business Development Representative, Driver Engagement Agent, Inbound Marketing Specialist, Cloud Engineer, Data Engineer, Manager-Software Engineering, Quality Assurance Engineer, Software Engineer, and Support Engineer in Bloomington, MN.

FactoryFix is hiring a Team Lead – Full Stack Developer, Full Stack Developer, and Infrastructure Developer- DevOps in Madison, WI; a Recruiter, Sales Development Representative, and Account Executive in Chicago, IL.

PrintWithMe is hiring a Regional Sales Director on the East Coast; AR/AP Specialist, Inside Sales Executive in Chicago, IL; ; a Software Engineer, Account Manager, and Marketing Director for Remote work.

Parallax is hiring a Growth/Experienced Business Development Representative in Minneapolis, MN.

Branch is hiring a Data Platform Manager, Senior Backend Engineer, and Solutions Engineer in Minneapolis, MN or Remote; and a Customer Success Manager in Minneapolis, MN.

Inhabitr is hiring a Chief Growth Officer/Head of B2C Growth, a Chief Growth Officer/Head of Growth, and a Sales and Customer Experience Associate in Chicago, IL.

NoiseAware is hiring a COO, VP of Global Sales & Account Management, Back-end Developer, QA Technician (independent contractor), Account Manager, and Customer Advocate in Dallas, TX.