Minnesota startups raised $310.3 million across 12 venture rounds in the third quarter of 2026, according to preliminary Dealroom data. The state finished third among the six Midwest states on dollars, behind Ohio and Illinois, and level with Michigan on deal count, with 15% of the $2.06 billion raised across the region.
Against the figures StartMidwest published at the time, the total is up 245% on the $90 million across 18 deals reported for Q2 and 8% above the $287 million reported for Q3 2025, a quarter that FarmOp Capital's $250 million growth round from The Carlyle Group supplied almost on its own. On Dealroom's venture basis, which did not count FarmOp, Minnesota is up 153.5% on the $122.4 million Dealroom shows for Q2 and close to six times the $53.6 million it records for Q3 2025. Minnesota and Ohio were the only two states up on every one of those comparisons.
What distinguishes Minnesota's quarter is its shape.
No single round was more than half the total, and five rounds came in at $30 million or more, the most of any state in the region. Niron Magnetics, the Minneapolis maker of rare-earth-free iron-nitride permanent magnets, leads with a conditional $150 million government debt commitment.
Behind Niron: Claros Technologies, the Minneapolis company commercializing a UV system for destroying PFAS, raised a $55 million Series B in July; ReEmerge a $37 million Series A in September; Gravie, the Minneapolis health-benefits company, $30.4 million of growth equity in August; and Yardstik, the Minneapolis workforce-risk and background-verification platform, a $30 million Series B the same month. Those five rounds were $302.4 million, or 97.5% of the quarter.
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, Minnesota's $310.3 million is 0.34% of the national quarter.
By stage, the quarter was weighted toward the middle: two Series B rounds, two Series A, two growth equity, one late-stage, three early-stage and two seed. By month, July brought three rounds and $57.6 million, August four rounds and $60.4 million, and September five rounds and $192.3 million, with Niron and ReEmerge both landing in the final month.
Where the weekly count and Dealroom disagree
StartMidwest's weekly roundups between the weeks ending July 17 and September 25 reported $274.65 million across ten Minnesota deals, the closest match to Dealroom of any state this quarter: Niron, Claros, ReEmerge, Yardstik and SCO2 appear in both with the same or near-identical figures, and Gravie, Inspectorio and Silicon Prairie appear in both without one. The $35.6 million gap is Gravie's restated $30.4 million plus Elehear's and Octin Health's small disclosed rounds, none of which the weeklies carried.
The weeklies, in turn, carried two Minneapolis raises Dealroom does not record for the quarter, both undisclosed: Vertical Insure, the embedded-insurance platform for vertical SaaS, which took investment from Updata Partners, and Emergent Software, the Microsoft-ecosystem data and AI consultancy. Neither changes the dollar total, but both would lift the deal count to 14.
Dealroom's figures for earlier quarters have also moved. Its Q2 2026 count for Minnesota is ten rounds and $122.4 million, against the 18 deals and $90 million the Q2 report counted, a gap that runs in both directions because the Q2 report included grants and awards and Dealroom has since added or re-dated rounds. Its Q3 2025 figure of $53.6 million across seven excludes FarmOp's $250 million, which StartMidwest counted and labeled at the time. The $310.3 million should be read as a preliminary indication rather than a final number with the full methodology set out in the regional report linked above.
Minnesota in 2026 so far
On the figures StartMidwest has published for each quarter, Minnesota startups have raised $581.9 million in the first nine months of 2026: $181.55 million in Q1, $90 million in Q2 and $310.3 million in Q3. That is 58% of the $1.01 billion the state raised across all of 2025, a year that closed with a $492.7 million fourth quarter, its largest since 2022. Matching 2025 would take a Q4 of roughly $430 million.
The Q2 report found that Minnesota was doing more deals at smaller sizes: 18 rounds at an average of $4.98 million, with no round of $50 million or more for two quarters running. Q3 reverses that. Deal count fell to 12, while the average disclosed round rose to $38.8 million.
The companies and investors named here can be found in StartMidwest's startups and investors database.
StartMidwest's other Q3 2026 state reports: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.
