Record Venture Capital Investments

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COVID-19 not putting damper on Lincoln venture capital investments

Lincoln-based companies by themselves have raised almost $170 million in the first six months of the year. Prior to this year, the most ever raised in a year in Nebraska was $120 million in 2015.

Most of that was garnered by Hudl. The sports video analysis company in May announced an investment from Bain Capital, and while it did not disclose the amount raised, a securities filing pegged it at $120 million.
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Two Lincoln companies in the health-care industry -- Adjuvance and Virtual Incision -- both got $20 million investments within a week of each other in January, and CompanyCam announced a $6 million investment last month.

In fact, not counting Hudl's investment, Lincoln-based companies have raised nearly $50 million so far this year. When you throw in Omaha firms, that number jumps to more than $60 million.

This was an insightful article that I would expect to see from SPN rather than the Journal Star. Nonetheless, it has been a good for venture capital investments so far. There was an interesting statement about companies that received early seed money from the state through a program with the Department of Economic Development. For every $1 dollar invested by the state, participants are have been able to pool $7 dollars through private investment. Also, while I have known that Lincoln's startup community is much more mature than Omaha's, it is still surprising to see Lincoln blowing out Omaha's capital investment numbers by $50 million so far this year.