Midwest Startup Funding for the week ending August 28, 2026

The last full week of August - with back to school vibes in the air alongside cooler temps - has brought a varied haul and $40 million of capital deployed across the region: a Minneapolis Series B taking on workforce fraud, quantum navigation money in Madison, and an embedded-payments raise in Cincinnati for a company featured in one of our Founder Stories. 

Here are the Midwest investments from across the great states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin that we've been able to track and verify this week, ending August 28th, 2026. As always, every company and investor below can also be found in our startups and investors database.

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*While you're here: If you'd like to make sure you're notified about any funds raised from the six states we cover, then make sure you're subscribed to our newsletter

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Yardstik

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Business Type: Cybersecurity

Amount Raised/stage: $30m Series B

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What they do:

Provides continuous workforce risk management through fraud prevention, background verification, and ongoing monitoring, offering real-time alerts on credential changes, vehicle reports, and compliance across the employee lifecycle.

Read more here.

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Payload

Location: Cincinnati, Ohio

Business Type: Fintech

Amount Raised/stage: $9m Series A, led by Fifth Third

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What they do:

Provides an embedded payments platform enabling software businesses to integrate payment acceptance, payouts, risk monitoring, and KYC directly into workflows, supporting various verticals. 

Read more here.

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Dirac Labs

Location: Madison, Wisconsin

Business Type: Quantum Computing

Amount Raised/stage: $1.8m pre-seed

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What they do:

Develops quantum-enabled navigation sensors using diamond-based magnetometers and AI signal processing. The sensors integrate with GPS ports to enable precise positioning underwater, underground, and in other GPS-denied environments, with applications in defense, autonomous vehicles, and exploration.

Read more here and here.

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Want to know more?

Read the latest quarterly funding reports for each state here:

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Illinois startup funding - Q2 2026

Indiana startup funding - Q2 2026

Ohio startup funding - Q2 2026

Michigan startup funding - Q2 2026

Minnesota startup funding - Q2 2026

Wisconsin startup funding - Q2 2026

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While you're here: If you'd like to make sure you're notified about any funds raised from the six states we cover, then make sure you're subscribed to our newsletter

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