Report: Indiana tech firms landed 19 deals worth more than $93.4M last quarter

Indiana tech firms landed more than $93.4 million in venture investment in 19 separate deals during the third quarter, according to a newly released TechPoint report.

Indianapolis-based TechPoint’s third-quarter VC report, released this week, details investment and acquisition activity involving Indiana tech companies.

The report includes information on publicly reported investments in Indiana-based tech firms. The actual amount invested last quarter was more than $93.4 million, TechPoint said, because financial details were not publicly available for two of the quarter’s 19 reported deals.

Among last quarter’s deals, three of the 19 were classified as late-stage deals, meaning that each of the three investments were $10 million or more, including identifiable investment from a professionally-managed venture fund. Those three deals totaled $55.5 million in investment, or 59% of the quarter’s total investment.

Last quarter’s investment activity declined as compared with the same period in 2022, when Indiana firms attracted a total of $160 million in 34 different deals.

But Chelsea Linder, TechPoint’s vice president of innovation and entrepreneurship, said she sees reasons for optimism despite the year-over-year decline.

“I anticipated that things would be continuing to slow down, which is exactly what happened. I would say, though, it didn’t slow down as much as I expected,” Linder said.

Linder said she was also encouraged by the fact that a company outside of central Indiana received one of the quarter’s largest investments.

Sortera Technologies Inc, which is based in Markel, Indiana, about 25 miles southwest of Fort Wayne, closed on a $30.5 million round of Series C funding last quarter. Sortera is a high-tech scrap metal recycler that uses artificial intelligence, analytics and advanced sensors in its operations.

“I was super excited to see that big deal coming from [outside of] central Indiana. I love to see that,” Linder said. “And I hope that we can continue to do more of that across the state as we continue to be more supportive of activity across the whole state.”

The Indiana activity mirrored national trends. According to the business analytics firm PitchBook, U.S. firms landed a combined $36.7 billion in venture investment in 2,716 separate deals last quarter. That’s down from the third quarter of 2022, when companies landed a combined $46.4 billion in 3,933 separate deals.

PitchBook’s data is not directly comparable to TechPoint’s, in part because PitchBook includes venture investments in all industry segments. TechPoint looks only at tech-sector investments.