Midwest Founders Community

In case you haven't seen it yet, Michigan Founders Fund is launching a Pre-Accelerator and it's going to be *AWESOME*! ❤️ 🧤 🚀 We're partnering with the experts at gener8tor on a program designed to support underrepresented founders across Michigan, offering personalized coaching, access to mentors, and non-dilutive funding. The goal? Prep more early-stage founders for future accelerators and investment opportunities, and help them build incredible high-growth companies right here in Michigan. We're hiring for someone to help run the program. If you or someone you know are interested, check out the application (link in the comments) and come join the team :) #startups #founders #michigan

Applications are now open for 1871 FinTech Innovation Lab's Fall 2024 cohort. This program will bring together growth and late-stage startups, corporate partners, investors, and industry experts to explore emerging trends and drive innovation in financial technology. See more below. https://lnkd.in/gSM6BfuD

We are excited to announce Startup Wisconsin Week is November 11-15th, 2024! 👉 What is Startup Wisconsin Week? Since 2017 it has been an annual state-wide celebration of Wisconsin's startup ecosystem. For one week, it rallies people together to highlight entrepreneurial activities and resources in communities across the state with a focus on startups, founders, and new innovations. 👉 How does it happen? It is a grassroots effort. Leaders, advocates, volunteers, and sponsors truly help bring events and ideas to life. 👉 Want to learn more on how to get involved? In the coming weeks, we'll be hosting a live-stream discussion and answer your questions. Information on that will be available next week! → Learn how you can: ↳ Host an Event ↳ Support the Community ↳ Speak or Present on a Topic ↳ Sponsor Startup Wisconsin Week Want to get involved right now to start planning? Send Jacob Miller a DM to start a conversation!

Come hear from founder Scott Zielski this October at #FounderFest!! Details here: https://lnkd.in/gqdFaCCY

If you are a startup founder or VC in the Chicago ecosystem, or beyond, you'll want to pay attention to these announcements 👇 If you've known me at all for the last year or so you'll know that I've been an active community builder. I honestly never really put my full attention behind it since I was running one of my previous companies. However, I have seen the benefits of community building a lot recently and how important it is. Ergo, I have made it my mission to contribute to the Chicago ecosystem as much as I can for the near future. I am starting a new moderated Slack channel specifically for members of Chicago's startup ecosystem. This will also be one of the new best ways to keep up with my events. 👀 I am also building software to help serve our community here which has launched recently. This software, while currently rather simple, will very quickly become a full fledged platform that I intend to share with the entirety of our ecosystem. The link to the waitlist is in the comments. 🔥 If you want to be involved, join the Slack group with the link in the comments below (and let me know if you're a VC, since I made a private channel just for you guys!) 👇 As a last note, I am also looking to talk to founders that have insane fire inside of them. If you are a founder and you want to take over the world, whether in Chicago or elsewhere, I've provided a Google Form for you to tell me more about yourself in the comments. Antler is funding fiery early stage startup founders with up to $500k in funding. 😊 Kelly LaBuff Prerna Sharma

We love to feature the great opportunities from our partners! The MKE Tech Hub Coalition offers FOR-M, a free incubator experience for founders in the Milwaukee tech ecosystem. This program offers coaching, connections, and workshops that help founders find their community and further their idea! Applications for this fall are now open, so find more information here: https://www.for-m.org/

After weeks of research, we’re excited to announce our 8th annual M25 and Midwest Startups City Rankings! This is our yearly dive into 64 Midwest city core-based statistical area (CBSAs) across 25 categories to further understand how those ecosystems are performing relative to each other in terms of startup activity, access to resources, and business climate. Checkout how your favorite cities stacked up and their momentum in: Victor Gutwein's key takeaways article (including a Tie in the Top 10!): https://lnkd.in/dDANGzX9 The full Rankings on Midwest Startups: https://lnkd.in/gYDACJk   Shoutout to: The startups and teams that announced liquidity events since last year’s Ranking’s data cut of the end of June 2023 including: Tempus AI IPO’ing at a $6.6B market cap and Tegus being acquired for $930M Maturing startups announcing later stage rounds including: Chicago’s Kin Insurance (and M25 portfolio company) becoming a Unicorn, Ann Arbor’s May Mobility $105M D and Censys $50M C, St. Louis’ Lumeris $100M, Minneapolis’ Flywheel.io $54M Series D, Indianapolis’ 120Water $43M, Columbus’ Beam Benefits $40M, Detroit’s KODE Labs $30M B, Lexington’s PayHOA $27.5M A, and Cincinnati’s Coterie Insurance $27M and Abre $24M A The firms that announced new funds since June 2023 including: Chicago’s Lightbank, 7wireVentures, 53 Stations, Distributed Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Motivate Venture Capital, Bluestein Ventures, Supply Change Capital, VITALIZE Venture Capital Ann Arbor’s Arboretum Ventures, Minneapolis’ Rally Ventures, Milwaukee’s Baird Capital, Indianapolis' High Alpha, Detroit’s Assembly Ventures, Green Bay’s TitletownTech, Madison’s NVNG Investment Advisors, LLC, Grand Rapids’ Grand Ventures

Don’t miss our next Founders Day on Wednesday, August 28th! Come join us for a day of free resources for founders at Ward 4 in Milwaukee! Stay for all or part of the day to enjoy open coworking, mentor office hours, coffee, snacks, and a networking happy hour. Register here: https://lnkd.in/gkyFBtUc

The Midwest Founders Community is excited to offer a focus group to overview the fundamentals of our new Revenue-Based Financing (RBF) proposal. Join us on August 28th to learn, discuss, and explore the potential of Revenue-Based Financing for founders and investors! RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/giP7crbf

Yesterday's “Terminology and Term Sheets” webinar with Godfrey & Kahn provided a wealth of information about navigating venture investments! Thank you to Jay Creagh and John McDonald for sharing your valuable expertise. We can’t wait for the next (and final) part of the series in September, where we will meet in-person for an in-depth look at the deal process! If you missed yesterday's event, catch up on our “How To” series with Godfrey & Kahn here: https://lnkd.in/gfvarqxM