TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

Minnesota tech entrepreneur Doug Berg has been heads down since SuccessFactors bought his last company, Jobs2Web, for over $100 million.  

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Mendota-Heights based Healthsense is raising another investment round of $5.9m with $4.3 closed on, according to a disclosure recently filed with the SEC.

“The flagship Healthsense product is the eNeighbor system, which was developed under the direction of the National Institute of Aging (NIA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The system monitors individuals in their homes and automatically calls for help if it detects a possible problem. The eNeighbor system utilizes a series of wireless sensors placed throughout the residence that capture the occupant’s activities of daily living.”

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Three months ago, famed Minneapolis startup Wahooly was selected to join the spring class of AngelPad, a San Francisco-based accelerator program.  And by the time they demo this Wednesday night, everything will have changed.

“Angelpad has caused us to re-examine everything,” says  co founder and CEO Dana Severson.  “As we peeled back the layers, it became clear that we could be better at what we set out to do with a different approach.” Sounds like a pivot if there ever was one.

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Twin Cities HealthIT startup Activation Life is fundraising a million dollar equity round according to a recent disclosure filed with the SEC.

The company is pursuing a “Digital Mobile Music System with Studio-Grade Resonate Frequency head phones,” to administer patients with tones that enter through the ears and vibrate throughout the body’s skeletal and vestibular system.  According the website, this involves both iOS and Android mobile applications.

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Last month, Adventium Labs announced the expansion of mobile gaming division Andamio Games to “Pursue the creation of  collaborative, mobile device games that comply with educational standards and take full advantage of the capabilities in mobile computing.”

Now they are taking their pursuits to Kickstarter with iNeuron, a mobile game that teaches high school neuroscience in a multi-player mobile environment.

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At least 24 Minnesota tech ventures raised in excess of $28 million dollars in the first quarter of 2013, according to information collected and analyzed from Jan 1 through March 31, 2013.

The data includes on the record activity compiled from multiple sources and actual numbers are estimated to be 20%+ higher according to investors who are not inclined to disclose their investment activity publicly. While imperfect, it’s a solid proxy of current local funding activity and trends — considered a worse case scenario.

As a comparison — in Q1 2012, 24 companies raised $58.6m, heavily skewed by one anomalous $52.5m deal; a more balanced comparison would be that 23 companies raised $6.1m in Q1 2013. The largest deal of Q1 was UpdateLogic ($10.9m), followed by Cachet ($7.9m) and Conservis ($1.46m).

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The Minnesota Angel Tax credits program that provides a 25% refundable tax credit for accredited angel investors who invest in qualified tech ventures are no longer available for the year 2013.

It appeared that things were moving right out the gate this year, although it’s always difficult to say forsure with the ebb and flow of investment activity; one or two big deals can really put a big dent in in the pot.

“The Angel Tax Credit Program is no longer accepting credit allocation applications because it has exhausted its credits for 2013,” said Jeff Nelson Angel Tax Credit Program Coordinator with the Department of Employment and Economic Development.

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It became quite clear right away that Minneapolis startup Spark Devices had found a winner with their Spark Core Kickstarter campaign.

The Core “Wi-Fi for everything” kit has since crossed $200k in funding commitments from some 2,400+ backers, and still has 23 days remaining. Today, the company announced some big collaborations designed to maximize the potential applications of Core:

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CoCo hosted the Google for Entrepreneurs crew at the Grain Exchange for the first entrepreneurial training experiment with Minneapolis’ STEP­‐UP program.

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