Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

The Midwest Fund launches, brings The Fund’s innovative investment strategy to a fifth market

A new investment fund is coming to Midwest cities, and it’s lead by names familiar to the local scenes. The aptly-named Midwest Fund targets early-stage startups from Pittsburgh to Chicago, from Detroit to Cincinnati, and everywhere in between. Unlike traditional venture capital funds, this one gets its funding from successful entrepreneurs looking for ways to reinvest in their regions.

The Midwest Fund was born from The Fund, an NYC-based venture capital group. Founded in 2018 by an all-star cast of Jenny Fielding, Katie Hunt, Adam Carver, and Matthew Brimer, The Fund has since expanded with micro-funds in Los Angeles, London, and the Boulder/Denver region. And with each expansion, local founders and investors are tapped to lead each region.

The Midwest Fund’s founding general partners are familiar names to the Midwest. This includes Ted Serbinski and Tops Kataria of Detroit, Chris Bergman of Cincinnati, Lynsie Campbell of Pittsburgh, Jennifer Fried of Chicago. With this diverse team, The Midwest Fund follows the example set-out by The Fund of having equal gender representation on investment committees.

“The Fund has always set out to have equal gender representation on the investment committee,” said Ted Serbinski, a GP at The Midwest Fund, “and believed that this composition, not an explicit mandate, would lead to more balanced investing. Three years in and across the other geographies, The Fund has invested in over 40 percent female founders. We think the same will be true in The Midwest, and we’re excited to advance this mission.”

The Midwest area has long been a foundry of notable industries and startups, with more popping up every day. Nearly eight years ago, Ted Serbinki, then a partner at Detroit Venture Partners, mapped this area, calling it a diamond with key cities at each point. Now with The Midwest Fund, he’s part of a team ready to write seed-stage checks to young companies.

Serbinski tells TechCrunch this fund is unique to this area because of its speed. He explains the fund intends to invest in two Midwest companies a month for two years, which he believes would make it the most active in the region.

The Midwest Fund’s limited partners come from the local areas in which the fund operates including Chicago’s Amanda Lannert, CEO of Jellyvision, Pittsburgh’s Patrick Colletti, founder of Newthealth, and Cincinnati’s Charlie Key, founder of Losant. Across all six funds ran by The Fund, notable LPs come from Zillow, ClassPass, Soundcloud, Casper, Quartz, and InVision.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio...
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line...
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted a...
3 comments
Read more