Indiana startups raised $51.0 million across six deals in the third quarter of 2026: five venture rounds totaling $26.0 million in preliminary Dealroom data as of October 9, plus ReElement Technologies' $25 million grant, which Dealroom's venture definition excludes and StartMidwest has counted and labeled because of its size. The total puts Indiana fifth among the six Midwest states on dollars, ahead of Wisconsin's $37.8 million, and last on deal count, with 2.5% of the $2.06 billion raised across the region on the regional report's venture basis.
Against the figures StartMidwest published at the time, the $51 million is up 43% on the $35.65 million across 13 deals reported for Q2 and 23% below the $66.3 million reported for Q3 2025, a quarter described at the time as the state's lowest since mid-2020. On Dealroom's venture basis alone, without the grant, Indiana's $26.0 million is down 19.8% on the $32.4 million Dealroom shows for Q2 and 59.9% below the $64.9 million it records for Q3 2025.
Two items make up 88% of the state's total. ReElement, the Indianapolis-area rare-earth and critical-minerals refiner that processes recycled magnets into high-purity oxides for US defense supply chains, received the $25 million grant in July, as StartMidwest reported in the week ending July 17. Intalus, the materials company infusing ceramics into metal parts and building production capacity at Purdue University's hypersonics manufacturing center in West Lafayette, added $20 million to its seed round in July, according to the company's own announcement, following the $11 million it raised in May led by Origin Ventures with Lockheed Martin participating. The seed now stands at $31 million.
The remaining four deals were smaller or undisclosed. Overfuel, the Indianapolis automotive-retail AI platform, raised $6 million in growth equity from Comedor Capital in September. Athian, the Indianapolis agricultural emissions marketplace that closed a $4 million Series A in November 2025, is logged by Dealroom with an undisclosed early-stage round in July. AlloDirect, the Valparaiso tissue-allograft ordering platform, and Pluto Aerospace raised undisclosed seed rounds in September. No Indiana round of any kind was recorded in August.
Nationally, Crunchbase put global venture funding at $159 billion for the quarter, with $91 billion going to US startups in its preliminary count. Twenty-seven companies raised a billion dollars or more, a record for a single quarter, led by OpenAI's $30 billion and $5 billion apiece for Databricks and Safe Superintelligence, all on the West Coast. The Bay Area took 24% of every venture dollar raised globally, roughly $38 billion. Against the $91 billion American figure, Indiana's $51.0 million is 0.06% of the national quarter.
Why this report departs from the regional one
The Midwest Q3 2026 report carries Indiana at $26.0 million across five rounds, on Dealroom's venture basis only. A $25 million grant to a company building domestic rare-earth capacity is the largest single capital event in Indiana's quarter, and leaving it out would describe the state's three months less accurately than leaving it in with a responsible label.
The same logic has not been extended to Kovina Therapeutics' $2.3 million National Cancer Institute grant for an HPV-targeted cancer therapy, also reported in the weeklies. With it, Indiana would be $53.3 million across seven.
The $51.0 million should be read as a preliminary indication rather than a final number; the full methodology is set out in the regional report.
Fewer rounds, larger ones
The Q2 report found that Indiana's problem was the size of its checks rather than the number of them: 13 rounds at an average of $2.74 million, the smallest average in the region. Q3 inverted that. The three disclosed items averaged $17 million, but there were six deals in total against 13 in Q2, and five venture rounds on Dealroom's basis against ten. On deal count Indiana sits behind Wisconsin's eight; in Q2 it had been one ahead of Wisconsin.
Writing in July, after the Q2 figures, Drew Beechler of Alloy Partners called the quarter a canary-in-the-coal-mine moment for the state, citing PitchBook data that put Q2 at the lowest venture total since 2018 and arguing that Indiana's founders were still starting companies while the larger checks were not arriving. We can't say whether Q3 has answered his call: two larger checks did arrive, but the falling deal count cannot be ignored.
Indiana in 2026 so far
On the figures StartMidwest has published for each quarter, Indiana startups have raised $119.0 million in the first nine months of 2026: $32.3 million in Q1, $35.65 million in Q2 and $51.0 million in Q3. That is a little more than the state raised in Q4 2025 alone ($93.4 million), and about a quarter of the $456 million it raised in the first nine months of 2025, when Q1 brought $237 million and Q2 $152.7 million.
Deal count has run at seven, 13 and six across the three quarters on the published figures, so the state has yet to post a quarter in 2026 which demonstrates both the activity of Q2 and a venture round large enough to move the total all on its own.
The companies and investors named here can be found in StartMidwest's startups and investors database.
StartMidwest's other Q3 2026 state reports: Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
