Midwest Startup Funding for the week ending August 7, 2026

Writing this from sunny Chicago, on our way back from Milwaukee and the Midwest Founders Community 5th birthday. We’re reminded how connected the region really is if you look closely: a flight to Wisconsin for a party, a train to Chicago with some meetings thrown in and then back to Michigan. The food wasn’t bad either.

Which brings us to the startup funding news for this week. 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 7th, 2026.

***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***

‍

Quercus Biosolutions 

Location: Madison, Wisconsin

Business Type: Agtech & Food

Amount Raised/stage: $5m

‍

What they do: 

Agtech business that uses AI to design mini‑protein crop protectants to target validated weed and pest enzymes, enabling scalable, low‑cost, non‑chemical solutions and advancing toward regulatory approval and broader pest control.

Read more here. 

‍

Adams Street Partners

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Business Type: Venture Capital

Amount Raised/stage: $5 billion

‍

What they do: 

Manages private‑market solutions, securing billions in secondary fund commitments, offering private equity, credit, growth capital, and evergreen strategies to institutional investors, while providing flexible wealth‑advisor services.

Read more here. 

‍

InvestiFi

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Business Type: Fintech

Amount Raised/stage: $20m

‍

What they do: 

Provides credit unions and community banks with an embedded digital investing platform, enabling users to trade stocks, ETFs, crypto, and manage IRAs directly from checking or savings accounts.

Read more here.

‍

RWX

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Business Type: Artificial Intelligence

Amount Raised/stage: $12m 

‍

What they do: 

Provides a dev cloud platform for AI-driven software engineering, enabling engineers and AI agents to build, test, and validate code with automated builds, caching, and isolated cloud sandboxes.

Read more here.

‍

SCO2

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Business Type: Sustainability

Amount Raised/stage: $2.65m

‍

What they do: 

Develops supercritical CO₂ extraction technology to recover valuable compounds from food waste, converting biomass into high‑value ingredients for food, beverage, nutraceutical, beauty, pharmaceutical, and specialty chemical markets.

Read more here.

‍

Want to know more?

Read the latest quarterly funding reports for each state here:

‍

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

***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***