2022 has been quite the year for M25: from the launch of new initiatives, the addition of a new team member (welcome, Sam!), to the return of some favorite events, we’re grateful for everything we’ve accomplished this year. In addition, 2022 saw some huge accomplishments for our portfolio companies and the Midwest region as well.
The team spent some time compiling our 2022 highlights, and we’ve rounded them up here for all to see. Enjoy!
The M25 Diversity Report
Ruth — In 2020, we published a Commitment to Diversity, Anti-Racism, and Allyship. In response to this pledge, we launched our first ever Diversity Report in February where we collected race and gender data on our portfolio and the intro calls we take with prospective investments in order to help address the prevalent diversity and inclusion issues in venture capital. M25’s Diversity Report data was featured on multiple news & media outlets, like this TechCrunch article.
Midwest Madness & Party in COMO
Ruth— In March, we organized our second annual Midwest Madness Tournament on Twitter. 64 Midwestern cities competed in the tournament. #8 seed Columbia, MO came out on top this year winning a grand prize of a party held in their city. #1 seed Wichita, KS was the runner-up. The party featured Midwest startups merch, confetti cannons, and—our personal favorite—a t-shirt cannon. Hosted by EquipmentShare and co-organized with Scale accelerator, over 100 guests from Columbia’s ecosystem made an appearance. Learn all about our 2022 Midwest Madness champion and the party of the century here.
Match Week
Katie — This past April we hosted our second annual Match Week where we curated over 1,100 virtual meetings with 200 investors and 60 of our portfolio companies. A mini-version of our annual Club M25 Summit, Match Week is a unique asynchronous matchmaking event that aligns our portfolio companies with their likely next investors and provides networking on a grand scale for investors. We’re excited to see this event grow in 2023!
Midwest Startups City Rankings
Sam— In August, we published the 2022 Midwest Startups City Rankings. Now with six installments, our annual ranking of cities in the Midwest startup ecosystem is a team effort of epic proportions. Our team leveraged thousands of data points, coming from 18 different data sources, to measure 59 Midwest cities across 27 weighted variables.
The results of this year’s deep dive were memorable! Indianapolis etched its name in rankings history as the first city to EVER unseat one of the top 3. The Hoosier state capital edged out Pittsburgh for the #3 spot this year, ending six successive years of Chicago-Minneapolis-Pittsburgh hegemony.
We hope the happiest season can placate you, rankings loyalist, until #RankingsSZN returns in a mere 8 months. The countdown is on!
Club M25 Summit
Katie— In September, we hosted our annual Club M25 Summit in Chicago. Our first one fully back in person since the pandemic started, this year’s Summit brought 200 investors from across the country to the Windy City. Over the course of the 2-day event, we were able to coordinate over 800 meetings (!!!) between our portfolio companies and investors, as well as between investors and other investors.
Our flagship event, the Club M25 Summit has grown significantly over the years, and we’re so proud of the quality of the event and the meaningful relationships we’ve been able to facilitate as part of it. In addition to the curated matchmaking it’s known for, the Summit also provides unbeatable happy hours, dinners, after-parties, and a full-blown founder summit as part of the event. The 2022 Summit truly felt next-level for us, and we’re already underway with the planning for 2023. Special thanks to Deloitte for providing a stellar event space for us to grow into + thank you to our event sponsors Gunderson, JLL, and Signature Bank!
Cincinnati Team Retreat
Abhinaya— One week after the Summit, the M25 team traveled to Cincinnati for the annual team retreat. We used this time as a team to reflect on the past year, discuss the future of M25, reevaluate our investment process, talk about our burning questions, and, more importantly, bond over various fun activities.
We started out the retreat with “Archery Dodgeball,” that is, archery and dodgeball combined, and by the end of the night, we were all sore, but we were just starting out. We spent time exploring the underground speakeasy, a grocery store that doubles as a jungle, a comic shop and bar, playing TopGolf for the first time (for some of us), and eating delicious bbq and waffles.
M25 & Friends Happy Hours
Arianna— This year, M25 hosted nine happy hour events throughout the Midwest area as a chance for their portfolio companies, fellow co-investors, and community champions to catch up and hang out. The cities we were able to visit included Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Columbia, Cincinnati, Chicago, Omaha, and Columbus.
Major Markups
Victor— In a year with a lot of market uncertainty, we sure had a lot to celebrate in our portfolio — markups!
Below are some of our earlier investments (made at pre-seed or seed) that publicly announced new rounds of capital as they’ve grown, increasing value for all shareholders (including yours truly). 📈
Seed:
We had companies we had invested in at preseed announced some meaningful seed rounds:
💊 Redi Health raised a round led by Refinery Ventures
🧓 Carefeed raised $3M led by Reformation Partners
🏭 Workshop raised $5M by McCarthy Capital
🚗 APFusion raised $6.5M by Left Lane Capital and Bedrock Capital
Series A:
Some of our bigger raises in our portfolio were 86 Repairs raising a Series A from Storm,
✈️ Tripscout raised a $10M Series A by Corazon and Accomplice among others
🗳 Civic Eagle raised $10M in Series A by S3 Ventures
😴 EnsoData raised a $20M on its Series A extension by Inspire Medical and Zetta Venture Partners among others
🍔 86 Repairs raised $15.2M in Series A by Storm Ventures, Mercato’s Savory Fund and Lightbank, among others
Inter-series
♻️ Rheaply raised $20M in post-Series A funding led by Revolution
Series C:
🌿 Branch took on $75M in Series C by Addition, General Atlantic and Drive Capital, among others
🔭 Astronomer took on $213M in Series C by Insight, Meritech, Sutter Hill, Venrock and more
Series D:
🌀 Kin took on $82M in Series D led by QED
M25 in the News
A roundup of a few notable articles featuring the M25 team in 2022.
- Business Insider: 39 Most Important VCs in the Midwest, according to other VCs—featuring Abhinaya, Mike, & Victor
- Chicago Inno: ChiTechIRL is bringing the Chicago tech community together — featuring Abhinaya
- Crain’s Chicago Business: Victor on the VC ecosystem in Chicago
- Forbes: Victor featured on the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in venture capital
- Hispanic Executive: Leandro featured in NextGen Collective’s 30 under 30
- Pitchbook: M25 made the list with most active VCs per region
- TechCrunch: How Chicago is changing who raises early-stage venture capital
- TechCrunch: Mike on how to raise funds when you aren’t in the Bay Area
- TechCrunch: There’s a reason why U.S. Midwest startups had fewer layoffs, Chicago VC says
- TechCrunch: Tracking venture capital data to pinpoint the next U.S. startup hot spots—featuring Victor
Want a sneak peak into what the M25 team has been up to this year? Check out part two of our year in review.
