July: Pitchly, ForwardFest, and Where to Invest in the Midwest

 

Great North Labs’s July Update

Where to Invest in the Midwest

At Great North Labs we are constantly making the case for investing in venture capital in the upper Midwest. Skepticism ranges from the size of the funds here, to the funding opportunities of the region, to the value of venture itself. GNL partner Pradip Madan addresses these issues in his latest piece “Where to Invest in the Midwest: Venture Across Asset Classes”. The article explores the popularity of venture investing with various types of investors, market timing, and the unique advantages of investing in a small venture fund in the upper Midwest.

 

Events

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Digital Transformation Summit on July 25th! Hosted by Great North Labs and Digerati, with speakers Gene Munster and Mark Ritchie, the Minneapolis event was a thoughtful collection of successful panelists and innovation professionals. With great food and cocktails, and VR demos by [x]cube LABS, the night was as fun as it was empowering.

August 16th-23rd, Madison. Forward Fest is an 8-day tech and entrepreneurship festival. It is a tremendous collection of events for startups and entrepreneurs. Ryan Weber will be attending from the 20-22nd, and will be holding office hours to meet with startups, entrepreneurs and investors while in Madison! Use the contact links below or tweet @mnvikingsfan  to set up a time to meet!

August 20-22nd, Grand Forks. UAS Summit & Expo. What is UAS? Unmanned Aerial Systems: drones, their controllers and operators. This summit is in its twelfth year!

September 13th, Minneapolis.  Coolest Companies Fest is put on by the Minneapolis branch of the tech and entrepreneurship publication, American Inno. “Join us for drinks, music, fun and the Coolest Companies celebration in September! During the event, we’ll crown Minne Inno’s Coolest Companies.”

September 17th, St. Cloud. Great North Labs annual stakeholder meeting. Save the date! Invitations and details to come!

September 19-20th, Des Moines. Angel Capital Association (ACA) Midwest Regional Angel Meeting . A forum for Midwest angel investors to learn about latest industry trends and access the ACA “Best of the Midwest” investments for syndication opportunities.

September 27-28th, Chicago. Rise of the Rest CEO Summit. This is a private event put on by Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. If you’re in Chicago and you want to connect with Great North Labs, Rob Weber will be in town for this event. Contact us through the contact links at the bottom of this email, or tweet Rob directly @robertjweber !

 

Portfolio action 

Pitchly is the newest addition to the Great North Labs portfolio. It is a content service platform for M&A professionals to organize and activate their intellectual property. Based in Des Moines, Iowa, Pitchly has developed a SaaS platform for professional service firms to aggregate information created during client engagements. Pitchly enables customers to conduct analyses on prior client services and easily turn data into content for marketing and business development activities. Pitchly is used in 35 countries to store more than 2 million client service data points for its customers.

Dispatch has closed their round of funding led by Great North Labs! The funding will be used to fuel an expansion to new markets. We had a strong showing for co-investors, with Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and the Gopher Angels investing alongside in the over-subscribed round.

New advisors

Bonnie Speer McGrath is President of Speer McGrath & Co. and CHRO of the Timmaron Group. Both companies provide executive support, board work, investing and fundraising. She was formerly President of TruScribe Software (now known as Squigl) , and nonconcurrently, the Board Director. Welcome to the team, Bonnie!

 

Job Board

FactoryFix is hiring a Business Development Representative
Dispatch is hiring a Sales Manager
Structural is hiring a Back-end Software Engineer, and a Senior Software Engineer
Team Genius is hiring a Lead Full Stack Developer

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