Some weeks the tracker fills up and some weeks it doesn't, and this was firmly the second kind.
We logged three investments across the six states in the week ending September 4th, and only two of them arrived with a dollar figure attached, which makes $22.25m the honest total for the week. It's the thinnest list we've had to work with in a while. Some of that is almost certainly the calendar — the run-up to Labor Day weekend and school has just come back. We'd rather flag the shortage than explain it away, and we'll find out more when the dust settles on Q3 numbers in October.
The other thing a thin week does is make concentration obvious. Two of the three rounds below are in Columbus, which is a decent showing for a city sitting in a state whose funding fell 85% in the second quarter while the country tripled. The O.H.I.O. Fund also turns up again in the largest round of the week, a fortnight after backing Cleveland's Sonic Fire Tech, which is the sort of repeat involvement we need to see everywhere.
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 September 4th, 2026.
As always, every company and investor below can also be found in our startups and investors database.
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
Stack Health
Business Type: Healthtech
Amount Raised/stage: $21m seed, led by 8VC with A*, Heartland Ventures and The O.H.I.O. Fund
What they do:
Helps employers provide health insurance using individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements, reimbursing employee healthcare spending rather than buying a single group plan for everyone on the payroll, and then helping staff compare and select individual policies. The company is the second act for Alex Frommeyer, who co-founded Columbus benefits business Beam Benefits and spent thirteen years there before Principal announced a deal to acquire it in July. Stack is starting with employers whose staff are concentrated in Central Ohio, and Frommeyer has said he intends to build it in person downtown.
battleface
Business Type: Fintech
Amount Raised/stage: $1.25m
What they do:
Travel insurance managing general agent offering coverage to consumers and partners, plus a 24/7 claims and assistance platform operating in more than 185 countries. The company was founded in 2017 and has been headquartered in Columbus since a Drive Capital-led Series A brought it there, and this raise follows $49 million in prior funding.
Silicon Prairie Holdings
Location: St. Paul, Minnesota
Business Type: Artificial Intelligence
Amount Raised/stage: Undisclosed — capital committed by Phoenix-based RAEK through Silicon Prairie's Regulation Crowdfunding offering
What they do:
Runs a capital technology business spanning online capital formation, broker-dealer and transfer agency services, private-market execution and investor administration. RAEK's first-party data technology is already deployed across that funding platform, and the two companies say the investment builds on a long-standing commercial relationship. The pitch for issuers is a data-ownership layer that connects marketing signals to actual investment commitments, so a campaign can be measured on the money it raised rather than the clicks it generated. Neither company disclosed the size of the commitment.
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
