Great North Ventures Investment Themes
Great North Ventures is a network-driven, generalist early-stage fund that prioritizes exceptional execution. Founded by founders, for founders – we back repeat founders, we back strong first-time founders, and we form founder teams in our venture studio.
Our innovator network and team’s connections drive our value-add to startups, and our network density is greatest in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. While we are a generalist fund, we invest in three theses: “Solving Labor Problems”, “Digital transformation Through AI”, and “Community-Driven Applications”.
Solving Labor Problems
The world’s talent markets are more connected and competitive than ever. The hardest challenges for virtually every business are related to attracting and retaining talent, including skilled and unskilled. Given the pressure across all industries for recruiting, developing, and retaining top talent, we are focused on investing in startups that look to tackle talent issues with either horizontal approaches (across industries) or vertical approaches (going deep in a single industry).
The future of work will see more workers who value their flexibility connecting across the world, working from anywhere. Traditional definitions of jobs (like the “9-5”) will also change as gig work and variations of employment affect how talent approaches the idea of work.
As the industry changes, down to the very conception of “work”, new solutions will come to market to meet demand while accommodating new realities.
What We are Looking For
Labor Marketplaces
Despite the rise of horizontal recruitment platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed, most workers are unsatisfied with the way they find new work; similarly, employers want to source the right workers more easily . Workers end up with low success rates on time-consuming applications for many job types because the horizontal platforms can’t go deep enough to match-make at a high rate. This same filtering issue plagues employers because they end up with a lot of noise from poorly recommended matches.
Examples in our portfolio include FactoryFix and Skillit. FactoryFix is a labor marketplace that for manufacturing businesses to find skilled talent to run their business. Skillit matches skills-tested carpenters with great construction firms.
Financial Services for Workers
As companies compete to attract talent, services offered to employees factor into employment decisions. Financial services for employees improve the employee experience by reducing inefficiencies, saving money, and giving employees greater control over their earnings.
Examples in our current portfolio include Branch and Micruity. Branch allows users to budget, take paycheck advances, and earn more income by picking up available shifts. Micruity partners with life insurers and fund managers to pensionize 401(k) plans, to provide access to a secure retirement for workers.
EdTech
Workers expect that they will advance in their careers. If they stay stagnant for too long, they will leave and go to another place. As such, employers and recruitment platforms need to get better at advancing the skills of workers so that they can level up. Edtech, especially “continuing education” offers this skill advancement.
An example from Fund I that has already been acquired is Clinician Nexus. Clinician Nexus provides clinical rotation management for health systems, medical and nursing schools, and medical and nursing students, with a transparent, people-centered platform.
Gig Work
Employees want flexible solutions so they can choose when they want to work and have the flexibility to work around their personal schedules or part-time positions.
Examples in our portfolio include Dispatch and Yardstik. Dispatch employs a driver network that performs last-mile delivery on-demand. Yardstik makes it easy for gig marketplaces and SaaS platforms to screen, verify, and train their workers.
Workplace Collaboration
A very effective way to increase productivity, while also increasing the engagement of workers, is to increase collaboration within and across functional areas of businesses. Collaboration limitations can be due to institutional silos, or physical barriers like those presented by remote work.
An example from our portfolio is Structural. Structural is an Employee Success Platform built to nurture employee connections within an organization.
Remote & Hybrid Work– The market was already trending towards supporting remote work, but the pandemic has accelerated the transformation by 10X. The cat is out of the bag and it isn’t ever going back. We still have a lot of opportunities to continue to innovate.
PrintWithMe is an example in our portfolio. PrintWithMe provides an accessible and smart printing solution for people who work from coffee shops, apartment buildings, or wherever a kiosk is located.
Project/Task Management– Given talent constraints in the market, efficiently allocating resources is more important than ever. Businesses that can increase operational efficiency can stay ahead.
An example from our portfolio is Parallax. Parallax is a platform built to help digital agencies and tech consultancies operate more efficiently, with better utilization of billable resources.
Work with us
If you have a startup that is solving labor market challenges in these or other ways, submit here for feedback. We will provide feedback to all startups who submit.
Before you submit, get an inside look at our process first: “This is how to evaluate early-stage consumer app startups”

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
