Indianapolis already had a real anchor sitting in this graph before this edition existed: Eli Lilly, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, genuinely headquartered here. The venture layer runs on a distinct model -- High Alpha doesn't just write checks, it co-creates companies through its own studio, 45+ started to date, with a real completed exit (Lessonly, acquired by Seismic in 2021) and a $125 million Fund IV. Elevate Ventures runs the statewide layer: $222 million AUM, $197 million+ deployed into 600+ Indiana companies. Marion County alone carries 971,822 people -- the largest single-county population of any market this site added in this pass. The stadium in this edition's own hero image carries its own history worth naming: the Colts themselves arrived in Indianapolis on the night of March 28-29, 1984, when owner Robert Irsay covertly moved the team from Baltimore using roughly 15 Mayflower moving trucks routed different ways overnight -- specifically to get ahead of a Maryland law that would have let Baltimore seize the team by eminent domain to keep it. A real, sharp contrast to Green Bay: one franchise structurally cannot be relocated, fan-owned since 1923; the other arrived in the dead of night, in one calculated move, precisely to avoid a legal attempt to stop it.
Region Stats
Total firms
12
VC / investors
2
Companies
3
Schools
7
Known For
B2B SaaS * Life Sciences * Venture Studio -- Venture Capital
