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Indiana's tech sector saw strong venture funding activity in the first quarter, raising a total of $348.8 million through 29 deals, according to a new report from TechPoint.
According to TechPoint's first-quarter Indiana Tech Ventures report released Thursday, last quarter's deal value was the highest in first-quarter fundraising activity since the organization began tracking such data in 2015. It was by far the strongest.
By comparison, the previous high was in Q1 2021, when total venture investment was just under $150 million. In every other year since 2015, venture funding in the first quarter was less than $100 million.
Across all sectors, including tech, Indiana companies raised a total of $491.9 million in the first quarter, up from $126.5 million in the same period in 2023.
However, last quarter's funding numbers were supported by two particularly large deals.
Fort Wayne-based Mammoth Technology has raised $270 million, according to a report from TechPoint. Another big first-quarter deal was from Carmel-based Sudo Biosciences, which secured $147 million in venture funding. (Because Sudo is a bioscience company, the transaction is included in the $491.9 million in total cross-functional funding, but not in the $348.8 million in total technology-specific funding.) .)
“These huge deals, which are outliers, are driving this number even higher,” said Chelsea Linder, vice president of innovation and entrepreneurship at TechPoint.
Linder said big deals like the Mammoth Technology and Sudo investments are a positive sign because they show out-of-state investors are paying attention to Indiana companies.
And out-of-state investors are important to Indiana's tech ecosystem, Linder said. She said the state has many in-state funders that invest in seed rounds for early-stage startups, but not as many investors funding later-stage companies.
“So once a lot of startups in Indiana get to a certain point, they're basically stuck and unable to raise additional capital from investors in the state,” Linder said.
Linder said this is where out-of-state investors fit in. “The dream is to fund all of that here so that when secession happens, the dollars stay in the state.” [when the company is acquired or goes public]. We are all working towards it. But in the meantime, money needs to come in from outside the state to help these companies take the next step. ”
The full TechPoint report, including a breakdown of funding by technology sector and geographic region, can be found here.
