Terminus secures $90 million giving outlook for 2021 a post pandemic boost

Indiana’s tech sector shot out of the investment gate this year with $102 million in publicly announced raises, 15 M&A transactions reported, and two new, tech-focused venture capital funds. 

“When you recall that Indiana tech companies raised a bit more than $174 million in all of 2020, $102 million in Q1 is an exciting start to the new year,” said TechPoint CEO Mike Langellier. “And the newly created funds brighten the startup investment outlook for the years ahead.”

In total, TechPoint, the state’s nonprofit tech industry growth accelerator, tracked capital raises at 16 Indiana companies, grant awards from three others and 15 reported mergers or acquisitions in the first quarter of 2021.

The TechPoint report focuses on investments made into tech companies, so the creation of the new venture funds are not factored into the sector’s quarterly investment total. However, formation of the funds is significant and worth noting.

High Alpha Capital will use its new $110 million fund to continue investing in Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A B2B SaaS companies, both that they start through High Alpha Studio, as well as existing companies — across geographies — they invest in through High Alpha Capital.  

Round One Capital was formed by tech veterans Jay Love, former co-founder and CEO of eTapestry and Bloomerang; Gary Rush, former CTO of ExactTarget and Angie’s List; Todd Katz, former CEO of Bell-Horn; Scott Brenton, Former COO of Angie’s List, and President & Chairman of the Orr Fellowship; and John Wechsler, Founder and CEO at Launch Fishers and The Indiana IoT Lab, formerly a Partner at DeveloperTown and President at Formstack. The $2 million fund will focus on new tech companies that have received formation funding, but aren’t quite ready for venture or private equity funding.

Terminus, an account-based marketing platform that calls both Atlanta and Indianapolis home, led all investments for the quarter with a $90 million Series C raise led by Boston-based Great Hill Partners, with participation from existing investors Atlanta Ventures and Hallett Capital of Atlanta and Edison Partners of Princeton, N.J. The company plans to add more than 200 employees to the Indianapolis office over the next two years. 

There was a flurry of new development in Bloomington’s tech community, the recently announced recipient of the 2021 “Rising Tech City Award” at TechPoint’s upcoming Mira Awards. Six Bloomington companies reported investments of almost $300,000. 

Also contributing to the activity were two Bloomington-based investment firms – IU Ventures and the Flywheel Fund. Additionally, Envisage Technologies, which received an investment from Norwest Venture Partners in 2020, acquired Indianapolis-based Guardian Tracking in March.

Each quarter TechPoint reports public investments and M&A activity involving Indiana technology companies. Share your funding deals with us via roger@techpoint.org. If you represent one of these Indiana tech companies and it is not yet listed on the TechPoint Tech Directory, please add them today. The free listing also enables you to list job openings on the TechPoint Job Board.

To see how the first quarter of 2021 compares to recent years, see TechPoint’s VC reports for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016. 

Continue reading for 2021’s Q1 month-by-month listing of publicly shared investments, grants and acquisitions involving Indiana technology companies:

JANUARY

Allegion, a residential and commercial security products company with North American HQ in Carmel, acquired Yonomi, a smart-home innovation technology company based in Boulder, Colo. The company was also a portfolio company of Allegion Ventures, the corporation’s venture capital fund. Financial details were not disclosed.

Bloomerang, a leader in cloud-based donor management and fundraising software for small and mid-size nonprofits, acquired Kindful of Nashville, Tenn., which  provides software for nonprofit organization and management. The acquisition builds on the Indianapolis company’s strategic growth investment from JMI Equity in the fall of 2020. 

New York-based BCM One, a provider of managed technology solutions, acquired Indianapolis-based LincLogix, a regional data and voice solutions provider. Financial details were not disclosed.

Fort Wayne’s Allied Payment Network, a provider of payment solutions to financial institutions, announced a “multi-million dollar” investment from Plymouth Growth Partners of Ann Arbor. 

Bloomington-based Blueprint Stats announced a $100,000 angel investment from the IU Angel Network. The company offers a video analytics platform for basketball players, coaches and teams to improve their performance on and off the court.

And also in Bloomington, Atlas Solutions reported a $20,000 investment from Elevate Ventures Community Ideation Fund for the software platform launched in 2019 to help non-profit organizations manage grants more efficiently. 

Innovatemap, an Indianapolis-based digital product agency, acquired Amarok Creative, a Carmel-based web development agency.

DRONEDEK, a Lawrence, Ind. startup that has patented a high-tech mailbox designed for secure drone delivery, raised more than $1.25 million from angel investors and an ongoing crowdsourcing campaign.

FEBRUARY

Indianapolis-based KSM Consulting acquired Tempus Nova, a Denver-based consultancy that exclusively provides Google Cloud solutions and implementation consulting. The acquisition brings new customers to KSM Consulting and allows them to be one of a handful of firms with expertise in the top three cloud platforms: Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure. 

HelloFrom, a South Bend greeting card tech platform, received a $20,000 investment from the Elevate Ventures Community Ideation Fund.

Heliponix, a Purdue-affiliated, West Lafayette startup that creates direct-to-consumer greenhouses, announced a $256,000 National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grant and a matching $50,000 investment from Elevate Ventures.

eGov Strategies of Indianapolis was acquired by CORE Business Technologies of Rhode Island. eGov’s platform is used by governments to create websites and payment processes for their communities. Financial details were not disclosed.

CNO Financial Group of Carmel acquired DirectPath for a purchase price of approximately $50 million with an additional earn–out if certain financial targets are achieved. The national provider of year-round, technology-driven employee benefits management services to employers and employees is based in Burlington, Mass..

Investcorp acquired a majority ownership in KSM Consulting. Investcorp’s US headquarters is in New York City with additional offices located all over the world.

Terminus, an account-based marketing platform that calls both Atlanta and Indianapolis home, announced a $90 million Series C raise led by Boston-based Great Hill Partners with participation from existing investors Atlanta Ventures and Hallett Capital of Atlanta and Edison Partners of Princeton, New Jersey.

MARCH

Selflessly, an all-in-one corporate social responsibility platform based in Indianapolis, acquired Employee Vitals, a community engagement platform company located in Kansas City. Financial details were not disclosed.

Flowaste received its second contribution of the quarter in March: a $270,000 pre-seed investment from Plug and Play Ventures of San Francisco.

Five Indiana-based companies each received $25,000 investments from Flywheel Fund, a member-managed capital fund based in Bloomington and managed by The Mill. They are Bloomington-based Boost, a mobile app, integrated with Canvas LMS, that gives busy students the tools they need to keep up with increasing schoolwork in a digital world; Civic Champs, a solution for seamless collaboration amongst volunteers, management, board members, and donors working in the nonprofit sector; Stagetime (Bloomington) a professional network platform for the performing arts industry. Also, South Bend-based

Flowaste, which uses video and data to provide actionable insights on food waste patterns in the restaurant and foodservice industry; and Qualifi of Indianapolis, which enables talent recruiters to scale phone interviews.

The Be Nimble Foundation, a 501(c)(3) social enterprise creating fully diverse and inclusive tech ecosystems, received a $300,000 grant award from Microsoft as part of its community skills program. The money will enable the Indianapolis-based nonprofit to launch 6 UI/UX, sales and customer success cohorts through 2023.

Kenzie Academy, an Indiana-based national leader in online technology training, was acquired by Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) in Manchester, New Hampshire. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Carmel-based KAR Global, a leading operator of digital marketplaces for wholesale used vehicles, led a $15 million Series A raise into Ravin AI, an Israel-based international provider of automated, mobile and CCTV-based artificial intelligence solutions for vehicle inspections serving diverse fleet, insurance and remarketing customers around the world.

Genesys, a global provider of cloud customer experience and contact center solutions, announced its intent to acquire Bold360 from LogMeIn of Boston. The proposed acquisition will advance Genesys’ Experience-as-a-Service vision. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Intelligent Fiber Network was acquired by Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. of Boulder, Colo. Owned by 21 Indiana local exchange telephone companies and one rural electric cooperative, the company provides high-speed fiber-optic backbone capabilities with more than 5,000 route miles of fiber-optic line across more than 60 Indiana counties. Zayo is a leading provider of fiber infrastructure in North America and Europe.

Zionsville-based water management software firm 120Water announced a $4.5 million round of capital led by New Ventures/The Heritage Group, with support of Allos Ventures, both based in Indianapolis. The capital will fuel hiring in all areas of the organization, in addition to research and development to support further enhancements to 120Water’s Digital Water Platform.

Envisage Technologies, a Bloomington-based provider of training and compliance software created exclusively for public safety agencies, acquired Guardian Tracking of Indianapolis. Guardian Tracking is a provider of software used by law enforcement and public safety departments to ensure higher performance, create more consistent and accurate documentation, improve employee engagement and morale, build trust, and create a clear path for more empowered leaders. Financial details were not disclosed.

Allegion Ventures, a $50 million corporate venture fund of Allegion, invested in Mint House, a New York startup focused on the hotel experience for modern business travelers through technology-aided amenities like secure mobile check-in and keyless entry, digital concierge services, customized pre-stocked grocery delivery and more.

Anthem announced an agreement to acquire myNEXUS, Inc., a comprehensive home-based nursing management company for payors. myNEXUS delivers integrated clinical support services for approximately 1.7 million Medicare Advantage members across 20 states. The company is based in Nashville, Tenn. Financial terms were not disclosed.

High Alpha Studios announced a $3.5 million Seed round investment for Trava. The round was led by TDF Ventures of Chevy Chase, Md., and included participation from High Alpha Capital and M25. Trava is an integrated cyber risk management and insurance platform led by Co-Founder and Chief Executive Jim Goldman, former VP of security governance, risk management, and compliance at Salesforce.

Indianapolis-based PactSafe, a Clickwrap Transaction Platform that safely and securely speeds up online transactions and commerce, was acquired by Ironclad, a contract lifecycle management platform based in the Bay Area. PactSafe will become the third geographic hub of Ironclad, in addition to San Francisco and New York.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

Leaders of the IU Philanthropic Venture Fund invested $100,000 in Ziptility, a Bloomington utility management software collaboration company, following an initial $250,000 investment made in July 2019.