2025 Dealmakers of the Year Honorees
Presented By: Oswald Companies
Ben Bernstein
Principal
Beringea
InvestNext, a Detroit-based real estate investment management platform completed its $15 million Series B funding round. The investment, led by Beringea, is part of a strategic move to evolve and expand the platform to help firms navigate increasing regulatory complexities and investor demands.
InvestNext provides a solution for real estate investment professionals to raise and manage capital more efficiently. The platform is designed to expedite capital raising and ensure greater accuracy in the work of General Partners,
With personnel across the US and Canada, InvestNext has over 1,600 GP clients, helping them manage over 70,000 global investors across 105,000 active investments. The company also boasts an industry-leading 96% customer retention rate, showing their dedication to providing exceptional value and building long-term relationships with their clients.
InvestNext's partnership with Beringea signals an important milestone in their journey, but their focus remains the same. As a product-centric company, InvestNext is determined to build the most compliant and secure investment management platform on the market, equipping clients to meet challenges like increased regulatory scrutiny in real estate head on.
Dustin Sapp
CEO
Traction Ag
Brook Critchfield
Partner
Plymouth Growth
Michelle Erikson
Vice President
Plymouth Growth
Traction Ag is a developer of farm management software designed to support farmers by integrating their factual accounting data with field operations. The company's software is a cloud-based farm application that can automate accounting transactions, monitor farm profitability, and create farm-specific financial reports, enabling farmers to make data-driven business decisions throughout the growing season and earn profits.
The company raised $11 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Plymouth Growth AND Cooperative Ventures in May 2024. Plymouth contributes over 20 years of expertise in nurturing category-leading software companies, while Cooperative Ventures is a fund established as a joint venture between CHS and GROWMARK, two of the largest farmer-owned agricultural supply cooperatives in North America. The investment, co-led by Plymouth Growth's Brook Critchfield and Michelle Erikson, will help drive Traction’s next phase of growth.
David Esposito
CEO
ONL Therapeutics, Inc
Under David’s leadership, ONL Therapeutics raised a $65 million oversubscribed Series D financing led by Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC in September of 2024. Bios Partners, Novartis Venture Fund, Michigan Capital Network, ExSight Ventures, and Visionary Ventures also participated in the round. The company intends to use the funds to expand its development efforts to further advance its differentiated clinical program in geographic atrophy (GA) associated with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Kathleen Kaulins
Principal
Plymouth Growth
Kathleen joined Plymouth Growth in 2023 as a Principal and is involved in all aspects of the firm’s investing activities. Previously, Kathleen served as Investment Director at Vistara Growth. As a senior member of the fund’s investment team, she focused on providing tailored capital solutions to growth stage software and technology companies.
Kathleen co-led the exit process of C2Dx and Above the Treeline, was the lead for the investment of Medtelligent, a Plymouth Fund V investment in November 2023, all while working for her doctoral degree, which she completed in 2024.
Prior to working as an investor, Kathleen spent 10 years as an operator at two New York City based technology startups where she led a number of different functions including Finance, Strategy, Operations, and Product. Kathleen began her career as an investment banker at UBS.
Gary Lewis
Founder & Managing Partner
Aquila Equity Partners
In October 2024, Pinnacle MEP Holdings, a portfolio company of Aquila Equity Partners, completed a majority recapitalization through a new partnership with Blue Point Capital Partners. Pinnacle MEP provides an array of HVAC and plumbing services to commercial and residential customers throughout the Midwest.
Formed in 2020 by the principals of Aquila, Pinnacle MEP cultivated a committed, local presence in each of its markets through a balance of acquisition-based and organic growth.
Prior to the recapitalization, Pinnacle completed 15 partnerships in the previous four years. As a result, the Company became a market leader in the region. Pinnacle MEP provides a unique and flexible exit alternative for those business owners who care deeply about their legacy, employees, customers, and community.
Kevin McLeod
CEO & Founder
C2Dx
Shore Capital Partners completed a partnership with C2Dx, a medical device company based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with a second location in Memphis, Tennessee. Following the partnership, Shore Capital and C2Dx announced they acquired the Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery family of products from Cook Medical. These products provide minimally invasive procedures for ENT surgeons to help treat obstructive salivary disease, chronic ear disorders, nasal/sinus and skull base reconstruction, and dysphagia.
Founded in early 2019 by McLeod and Ann Arbor-based growth capital firm Plymouth Growth Partners, C2Dx is led by a team of medical device industry experts with over a century of experience managing growth-oriented teams. Since it was founded, C2Dx has expanded its product offerings and capabilities through product line acquisitions, recruitment of talented executives and employees, and superior customer service.
Detroit Venture Partners
Founded in 2010 by Dan Gilbert, Detroit Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that seeks to invest in advertisement technology, consumer web technology, internet, mobile software, social media, and e-commerce sectors. Its focus is to invest where Detroit Ventures feels that its presence on the cap table provides outsized value. These investments tend to be local metro Detroit based companies, or those where other parts of the greater Rocket Family of Companies have potential to for strategic advantage. Over the last two years alone, Detroit Venture Partners has made numerous seed, early stage, and later stage investments in companies ranging from Gigpro, an on-demand labor platform intended to provide staffing services to Highway9 Networks, provider of multi-cloud 5G edge service intended to deliver next-generation 5G connectivity to the enterprise. Accepting on behalf of Dan Gilbert and Detroit Venture Partners is investor Lindsey Kilbride.
2025 Social Impact Award
Kristina Oberly
Co-Founder
Alison Todak
Co-Founder
Shine & Rise
Shine & Rise was founded to cultivate connections that elevate and bolster women in tech. The group began in Ann Arbor in 2019 with 10 women, and since that time, it’s grown to more than 600 members from across Michigan. The organization fosters community through events like co-working days, happy hours, and professional development discussions, as well as a digital platform for women and nonbinary folks to connect asynchronously.
Daniel Weingartz
Chairman of the Board
International Samaritan
The Weingartz Family has been very active with International Samaritan, which provides education and holistic support to poor families in the Garbage Dump communities around the globe. These dumpsites are dangerous, poorly regulated, and the waste spills into the surrounding communities. These garbage dump communities are home to refugees, lepers, abuse victims, orphans, and other extraordinarily vulnerable groups. The majority of the people laboring in these dumpsites are single mothers, women who feel they have no other way to provide for their children.
Over 15 million people around the globe live and work in communities surrounding garbage dumps, making a living by finding items to keep or sell to escape extreme poverty. In addition to his activism with International Samaritan, Dan Weingartz and his family also put their money where their mouth is, making a $2.2 million donation to expand Ann Arbor-based International Samaritan's efforts in Africa.
Thank you, Dan and the Weingartz family for your humanitarian efforts. Keep up the outstanding work.