Mapping Minnesota’s Venture Capital Ecosystem

Mapping Minnesota’s Venture Capital Ecosystem

Minnesota has long prided itself on its thriving business tradition, as home to venerable global giants like 3M and General Mills, as well as more recent national successes like LifeTime and Medtronic. But we’ve been surpassed by other states and metro areas with smaller populations and corporate footprints when it comes to our investor community that helps our newest companies launch and scale. In our latest print edition, Twin Cities Business asked big questions of smart people about what it would take to get the startup scene in the Twin Cities and Minnesota to the level of places like Denver and Salt Lake City, with more companies, more capital, and more growth.

How do we encourage a culture of risk-taking? What’s holding companies back—access to capital or talent? Not enough local startups and investors have generated the kind of returns to get institutional money off the sidelines and into venture funds? Or something else entirely?

Many are already tackling solutions, such as Arthur Ventures, whose rapid ascent has allowed it to grow prominent nationally. We also take a look at a few big ideas that are working elsewhere that could deliver close to a billion dollars in capital (yes, an ambitious target) to the emerging companies that call this place home.

First, we took a look at the big players locally, where they stack up against one another, and who is investing their money in this market.

This analysis includes independent local venture capital firms but excludes national firms with local offices, corporate venture capital arms, and investor networks—all of which remain important parts of the investor ecosystem.

Traction Capital and Groove Capital stand out as the most directly focused on local investing; the biggest players in local VC tend to be the ones that are national in scope. When thinking about total capital invested locally, it’s helpful to consider the scale of firms (see bubble charts): A small percentage of a large fund can still make hundreds of millions of dollars in local investments (see Arthur Ventures).