TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

At least 24 early-stage Minnesota tech companies raised a cumulative $58.6m in financing according to information collected and analyzed for the first quarter 2012 Capital Review.

Excluding Code 42 Software’s behemoth $52.5m first round, 23 companies raised $6.1 million, a more balanced picture of Minnesota’s tech investment climate on record for the start of this year.

21 of those 23 raised $3.9m in capital under the Minnesota Angel Investor Tax Credit within the first 90 days of the year, so says DEED’s data. Approximately 33 cents of each dollar invested through the program went into IT, Software, web, mobile, hardware, and telecom areas.

This data set does not include off-the-record and otherwise publicly undisclosed transactions; for a comprehensive historical review of Minnesota tech fundraising over the past few years, see: 2010; Q1 2011; Q2 2011; Q3 2011; Q4 2011. If anything was missed, please leave a note in the comments section and we’ll update.

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According to our quarterly analysis of the local entrepreneur/investor landscape, over 20 early-stage Minnesota tech firms received investment capital during the first three months of 2011.

At least $38m in total funding was procured by Minnesota’s high tech sector alone from January through March — largely skewed by Cima NanoTech’s $15m D round, 8thBridge’s $10m series B and RedBrick Health’s $5.7m raise. The remaining 18 startups raised just over $7m combined, for an average round of $388k.

Things are not as bad as the legacy media makes them out to be — but misery loves company and you are free to follow shallow opinion if it supports your prejudice.  Another recent, and slightly more useful attempt, paints an incomplete picture of what’s really happening within the industry.  Since most of the action is on the ground-level, our coverage extends beyond “VC” (definition please?) to include seed-stage funding on up.

A reported ten tech deals representing $3.3m were facilitated under the umbrella of the Minnesota Angel Investor Tax Credit (date=UNK).  The data does not factor off the record and undisclosed transactions; any relevant PWC MoneyTree data will be updated accordingly.

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