Fueling the Future: From a real estate acquisition in St. Louis to AI in Madison
What is fueling Fast Future Country innovation? In this weekly feature, we share a variety of announcements covering funding, acquisitions, exits, grants, and everything in between. Got something to celebrate? Click here to share your story.
- Clayton real estate developer Green Street has acquired one of the largest architectural firms in St. Louis, HDA Architects. HDA will operate as part of Green Street Building Group, a multi-family and hospitality division, but will also continue to work independently on its own projects.
- Tivity Health, based in Franklin, TN, is selling its health nutrition business to Kainos Capital in a $575 million cash deal. The business includes Nutrisystem and South Beach Diet, and the deal is expected to close in Q4.
- Iowa City startup CartilaGen has received $100,000 in funding from Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, as well as getting advisory support from MATTER, a medical startup incubator based in Chicago. CartilaGen is developing a solution for post-traumatic osteoarthritis.
- UW-Madison spinout DataChat has raised a $4 million seed round led by Silicon Valley investors WRVI Capital and Nepenthe Capital. DataChat developed an AI interface—“Conversational Intelligence”—that enables businesses to analyze their data by talking to a chatbot.