High Alpha venture studio wins Investor of the Year Mira Award
Scott Dorsey, managing partner of Indianapolis-based venture studio High Alpha, accepted the Investor of the Year Award during TechPoint’s 19th annual Mira Awards honoring the best of tech in Indiana.
The Investor of the Year Award recognizes an angel investor or investment firm principal who brings money plus exceptional connections, advice and attention to Indiana companies.
The Mira Awards judges selected High Alpha and Managing Partner Scott Dorsey for the venture studio’s volume of highly focused business-to-business software-as-a-service investments, as well as the firm’s demonstrated community commitment and value-added growth and education programs like Alloy, Blue Angels, Speaker Series and Flight School.
- Alloy — An exclusive annual portfolio showcase tailored to an executive audience
- Blue Angels — A unique professional development program for women at High Alpha companies
- Flight Schools — Opportunities to grow and network with other marketing, product, sales, and customer success teams across the High Alpha portfolio
- Speaker Series — Events featuring nationally-recognized business leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors
The judges noted that the six financial investments High Alpha made in 2017 were important in making their decision, but that the studio’s ability to draw investment to the community from out-of-state to help fuel companies in its own portfolio and some not not formally connected to the studio were major factors.
In the 30 months since the four founding partners — Scott Dorsey, Kristian Andersen, Mike Fitzgerald and Eric Tobias — launched High Alpha, the studio has invested $11.4 million in Indianapolis tech companies. High Alpha’s six 2017 investment rounds included:
- ClearScholar, Series Seed
- Lessonly, Series B
- Sigstr, Series A
- Structural (offices in Indiana and Minnesota), Series Seed
- Quantifi, Series Seed
- Vibenomics (formerly Fuzic), Series Seed
High Alpha has also forged a number of relationships between VCs and investors outside Indiana and its Indianapolis studio companies. Many of these relationships have culminated in large investments into the Indianapolis tech community from firms across the country, including OpenView Venture Partners, HubSpot, Battery Ventures, ReThink Education, Router Ventures, GGV Capital, SV Angel, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Nextlaw Ventures and more.
Considering all publicly announced investments made, High Alpha has participated in or facilitated a grand total of nearly $44 million of investments into Indianapolis tech companies since June 10, 2015.
TechPoint, the growth initiative for Indiana’s tech ecosystem, honored the successes and innovation of Indiana companies, entrepreneurs, educators, and other leaders at The JW Marriott Indianapolis during the 19th annual Mira Awards gala presented by Angie’s List, Infosys, and Salesforce.
A total of 15 award winners and two honorable mentions were chosen from the 100+ outstanding companies, organizations, and individuals who were selected as nominees this year out of the 205 applications received highlighting achievements during the 2017 calendar year.
SEE ALL WINNERS
Fifty-two independent, volunteer judges spent more than 850 total hours reviewing and ranking applications, interviewing nominees, and selecting this year’s winners. Judges included company founders, CEOs and presidents; CTOs, CIOs and software developers; professors and chancellors from Indiana universities; design, human resources and sales professionals, and a variety of other subject matter experts.
The Mira Awards are named after the first of the brilliant variable stars to be discovered – the Mira Star. It is also the Latin root meaning “worthy of admiration, wonderful, marvelous.” The awards represent the best of tech in Indiana each year.
