Investing in Iowa is a quarterly review of all investments made into early-stage companies that are located in Iowa. The series is sponsored by America’s Cultivation Corridor, an organization focused on building opportunities for agricultural bioscience research, innovation and entrepreneurship in Iowa.
Iowa startups raised nearly $28 million in Q1 of 2022. Since the beginning of 2018, Iowa startups have now raised a total of more than $450 million.
The following is a list of all known investments raised by Iowa companies in Q1 of 2022.
| Company | Amount Raised | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Alquist 3D | $1,000,000 | 01-20-2022 |
| Cargofy | $2,000,000 | 02-01-2022 |
| GW Nutrition | $450,000 | 02-02-2022 |
| Haber Technologies | $2,900,000 | 02-23-2022 |
| Hellcat Technologies | $200,000 | 01-12-2022 |
| Koloni | $1,300,000 | 03-29-2022 |
| No Limbits | $100,000 | 04-01-2022 |
| OpenLoop Health | $8,000,000 | 03-15-2022 |
| WorkHound | $12,000,000 | 03-16-2022 |
| $27,950,000 |
Multiple Series A rounds of more than $5 million
Two Des Moines companies raised Series A rounds of more than $5 million this quarter.
WorkHound, an employee feedback and retention platform, announced in March that it had successfully completed a $12 million Series A fundraising round. The capital, funded wholly by Level Equity, a growth equity firm based in New York City, will be used by WorkHound to add to its employee headcount, expand product offerings, and grow its presence in trucking and additional supply chain verticals.
Des Moines health tech startup OpenLoop raised a Series A financing round of $8 million. OpenLoop will use the capital to continue to expand its telehealth services and to grow its team. The company currently has 45 employees with plans to add another 25-30 employees by the end of the year.
Other notable rounds
Some of the other largest rounds from Q2 are:
• Koloni, a Midwest-based startup, announced today that it has successfully completed a seed round of $1.3 million. The round was led by Jason Calacanis’ Launch Fund with additional investments from ISA Ventures, Twelve19 Ventures, Chicago Early Growth Ventures, Locker One Ventures and others.
• No Limbits received a $100,000 investment on ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’ from investors Mark Cuban and Emma Grede.
More news from Q1
• University of Iowa spinoff hC Bioscience, a drug discovery and development company focused on tRNA-based therapeutics targeting protein dysfunction, closed a Series A financing of $24 million led by ARCH Venture Partners, Takeda Ventures and 8VC.
• The Iowa Center for Economic Success, a nonprofit based in Des Moines, announced in February that its Loan Fund has been certified by the U.S. Department of Treasury as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).
• Bahrain-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange Rain Financial raised $110 million in a Series B funding round. Two of Rain’s co-founders, AJ Nelson and Joseph Dallago, attended the University of Iowa, where they created clusterFlunk, an online platform that offered college students a place to meet, discuss college courses and share notes
• Workiva announced that it has acquired Denmark-based ParsePort for $100 million.
• A new monthly email digest called the Startup Iowa Hot List was launched to better connect Iowa-based startups with investors in Iowa and the Midwest.
This list was made from a combination of SEC filings, Crunchbase and previous Clay & Milk stories from throughout the year. If you are aware of investments we have missed, please post them in the comments or send us an email and we will be sure to add them.
Clay & Milk composes a similar list of investments for every quarter to build a credible track record of capital raised throughout Iowa. Over time, we will continue to add analysis to these posts, comparing past time periods and noting trends as they appear.