Government Eric Holcomb speaks at the Indiana Global Economic Summit in downtown Indianapolis on Thursday, May 23, 2024. (Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Startups, be happy.
The state of Indiana and a local venture capital firm plan to launch a $100 million venture capital fund focused on growth-stage companies, officials announced Thursday. The announcement came minutes after Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb opened the state’s second Global Economic Summit.
Indiana under Holcomb spent $250 million on startups in 2017. But officials said there was still a gap.
“In addition to helping cultivate and advance the growth of a startup, Indiana will now be able to continue to play a key role in moving that innovation from one stage to the next,” Holcomb said.
“This fills the void that was there,” he added.
Elevate Ventures CEO Christopher Day indicated that the fund was a long-held goal.
“In the state of Indiana, we’ve never had a growth-stage fund. I have literally been dreaming about this for 16 years,” he said.
Day said he believed Indiana could be the “innovation capital of the world,” highlighting the state’s infrastructure, talent, cost of living and other key factors.
Elevate Ventures will anchor the fund with a $25 million commitment from the proceeds, according to a press release. The company plans to raise another $75 million through the private market.
It plans to start setting up the fund late in the second quarter – which runs from April to June – and make its first investments in 2025, the press release said.
Most investments will be in fast-paced Series A startups, or Series B and beyond, Day said. These are generally companies with revenues of $7-$8 million or more, he added. They would use the money to scale up product development, marketing and sales.
Close more deals
Holcomb also joined Purdue University President Mung Chiang and Elanco CEO Jeff Summins on Thursday afternoon to announce a new OneHealth Innovation District in Indianapolis.
Greenfield-based Elanco, an animal health company, is building a new headquarters on the former GM stamping plant site near downtown on the west bank of the White River.
The sprawling factory closed in 2011. After demolition, the site, which required environmental remediation, lay empty for years. An earlier proposal to redevelop the property fell through and a legal battle ensued, according to the Indianapolis Star.
Elanco’s new headquarters would now be accompanied by a shared-use research facility with space for offices, wet labs and incubators.
“The research facility will advance the state’s vision to anchor our regional technology hub as a key addition to the One Health Innovation District, aimed at accelerating collaborative innovation in our life sciences,” Holcomb said in a news release. “The partnership marks a rare and remarkable step bringing together a global healthcare company, a university and a government with a shared vision. The district will create an ecosystem focused on talent, applied research and innovation that can be sustained for generations to come.”
The partnership with the university, part of the integrated “One Health” approach, “is intended to increase the ability to prevent, predict, detect and respond to health threats,” according to the press release.
Elanco further committed to share technology development capacity at its current Indianapolis facility and later at the completed Innovation District, and to contribute up to $2 million to launch a new Animal Health Venture Fund.
It’s also a win for Purdue, which will lose most of its presence in Circle City when its joint campus with Indiana University officially splits in July. Chiang, the president of Purdue, said all of his university’s programs would be “homed in our state’s capital.”
Holcomb is additionally expected to announce new investments by domestic pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. on Friday, according to his public schedule.
Dignitaries and business leaders gather
A few minutes beforehand, Holcomb addressed a crowd of spectators in a speech welcoming the summit’s more than 1,000 attendees.
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According to Holcomb, they included 41 delegations from more than 30 counties.
He praised Indiana’s economic growth and public health victories. He also doubled down on the state’s “all of the above” approach to fossil fuels and renewables.
And he sought to appeal to the summit’s outside guests by denouncing political philosophies that oppose involvement in foreign affairs and support restrictions on foreign imports.
“Isolationism and raw protectionism actually limit the horizons of the future, and worse, they reveal a deep lack of trust,” Holcomb said. “Of course, the new foreign investor here in Indiana could be a competitor of an American company. But… in no time, that same foreign investor becomes a customer of an American company, not to mention creating jobs, building a community and a source of tax revenue,” he continued. “…The same thing happens when American companies invest and grow in your territory.”
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