There were 15 publicly announced instances of Indiana tech companies raising capital or obtaining grant money in the second quarter of 2019 totalling over $42 million. In addition, 10 Indiana tech or tech-enabled companies were involved in mergers and acquisitions. In most cases, financial details for these transactions were undisclosed. Below is a list of public investments and acquisitions involving Indiana technology companies that occurred in the second quarter of 2019.

APRIL

Malomo, Inc. of Indianapolis was publicly introduced to the Indiana tech ecosystem in April. The announcement included news of a $600,000 pre-seed raise from institutional investors Hyde Park Ventures and High Alpha along with angel investors Ade Olonoh, Randy Stocklin and Angie Stocklin.

Intelligent Fiber Network announced a $13 million equity investment from its member owners and Wabash Valley Power. The funding will allow IFN to expand its high-speed fiber network.

The first major M&A news of the quarter involved KSM Consulting of Indianapolis when Renovus Capital Partners, a Philadelphia-based private equity firm, acquired a majority interest in the company. The firm will still be based in Indianapolis with plans to hire up to 30 new employees into its corporate headquarters on Monument Circle.

Indianapolis-based Synovia Solutions announced its acquisition by CalAmp of Irvine, Cal. for $50 million. Synovia’s “Here Comes the Bus” app was nominated for a 2019 Mira Award for Tech Service of the Year.

Formstack continues its rapid growth with their second acquisition of the year. The company announced the purchase of WebMerge for an undisclosed amount. Both companies are based in Fishers. 

Fort Wayne jumped into the Q2 spotlight with the announcement of a “multi-million dollar” raise and relocation plans by 3BG Supply Company. The raise was led by Plymouth Growth Partners of Ann Arbor with an additional investment from Elevate Ventures. The relocation plan will put 3BG Supply Company in The Landing on Columbia Street, one of Ft. Wayne’s newest commercial and residential attractions.

RS2 Technologies, an electronic access control technology company based in Munster, Ind., announced its acquisition by ACRE of Las Vegas, Nevada. ACRE owns a number of brands in the physical security industry.

Allison Transmission Holdings of Indianapolis announced two acquisitions in April for a total of $132 million. Allison secured a division of AxleTech International in Troy, Mich. and Vantage Power Ltd. of London, England.

April came to a close with the announcement of a $7.3 million Series A raise by Viral Launch of Indianapolis. The raise was led by Tenfore Holdings of New York City. Viral Launch took home the 2019 Mira Award for Scale-Up of the Year, and co-founder and CEO Casey Gauss received the Rising Entrepreneur Mira Award.  

MAY

Perceivant announced nearly $600,000 in funding from previous investors plus Elevate Ventures and Gravity Ventures of Indiana. Bootstrap Venture Partners of Southern California also participated. The Indianapolis-area company produces active learning experiences for higher education with leading-edge analytics.

Indianapolis-based Boardable completed a $1 million seed round in May with High Alpha. The company’s software platform is designed to increase board member engagement for nonprofits. 

Xiber LLC, an Indianapolis provider of high-performing network and Internet services, announced a combined $5 million investment led by three Central Indiana commercial real estate companies including Milhaus, Birge & Held and Hageman Group. The companies plan to use Xiber’s automated home and building technologies for residents and occupants of their properties.

JUNE

Rook Security, a ten-year pioneer of cybersecurity services based in Indianapolis, was acquired by Sophos Group of Oxford, England. Sophos is a publicly traded company with over 3,300 employees and 300,000 customers. The former Rook Security team will now be a part of the managed detection and response (MDR) services team of Sophos.

Four Purdue University affiliated companies received funding from the Elevate Purdue Foundry Fund. Covert Defenses, BDYWR, C2 Medical Robotics Inc. and Rogo Ag LLC each received the $20,000 Black Award from the joint venture between the Purdue Foundry, a Purdue-based startup accelerator, and Elevate Ventures.

In addition to the Black Award, Rogo Ag LLC also received a combined $200,000 from Purdue Ag-Celerator Fund and Ag Alumni Seed. Rogo is developing autonomous robots to collect more accurate soil samples so farmers can make better decisions about their soil fertility application.

Bloomington-based FormAssembly announced a $10 million Series A raise in early June with plans to add 30 jobs to the area in the next few months. The company, which provides a customizable form solution built to streamline processes and drive quality form conversions, already employes 70 people. Level Equity, a private growth equity firm in New York City, funded the entire round.

Salesforce, the Silicon Valley-based tech giant with one of its largest offices in Indianapolis, made worldwide headlines with the announcement of its acquisition of Tableau for $15.7 billion in an all-stock deal. Tableau’s self-service analytics platform empowers people of any skill level to work with data.

Raytheon, the Waltham, Massachusetts-based defense and aerospace company with operations in both Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, recently announced merger plans with United Technologies Corporation (UTC) of Farmington, Connecticut. The merger will create Raytheon Technologies.

Lumavate, an emerging progressive web apps (PWA) company in Carmel, announced a $3 million growth capital raise in June. The round included participation from BioCrossroads, Elevate Ventures, Collina Ventures and 4G Ventures and will allow Lumavate to continue to expand its product offering and grow its product, sales and marketing teams.

ANVL, a High Alpha Venture Studios company in Indianapolis, shared news of the company’s first major funding round in June. In addition to participation from High Alpha Capital, the $2 million seed round also included Steve Case’s Revolution Rise of the Rest Seed Fund of Washington, D.C. along with angel investors and entrepreneurs Scott Kraege, former CEO of MOBI, and Fishers entrepreneur Steve Cage.

Go Electric Inc. was acquired by Saft of Levallois-Perret, a suburb of Paris, France. The Anderson-based energy solutions enterprise was one of the ten Indiana companies chosen to participate in the 2017 Rise of the Rest Tour stop in Indianapolis.

KSM Consulting made M&A news twice during the second quarter of 2019. After it’s acquisition by Renovus Capital and promotion of Mark Caswell to the CEO role, the company became the acquirer in June with the announced purchase of Connect Think, a web development company in Indianapolis.

Warrant Technologies of Bloomington received a $100,000 grant from NASA to focus on artificial intelligence research and advancement in support of its Space Tech Development program. The grants are part of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs and awarded an estimated value of more than $45 million to multiple companies. This is the first grant given to Warrant Technologies.

Each quarter we report public investments in Indiana technology companies. Interested in sharing your funding deals? Email roger@techpoint.org.