Dana Guthrie's Gateway Capital announced the first close of its $25M Fund II this week, out of Milwaukee. The announcement landed alongside news that Artemis II will be the last NASA moon mission not dominated by Silicon Valley capital. Read together, these two stories describe a venture landscape that is simultaneously concentrating at the top and diversifying at the edges, with the middle, geographically and economically, doing the most interesting work.
The Case for Place-Based Investing in a Placeless Economy
Gateway Capital's thesis is geographic and demographic. It invests in the Midwest, in founders who are building where they live rather than relocating to capture proximity to Sand Hill Road. This is a contrarian position in 2026, when AI infrastructure deals are consolidating around a handful of Bay Area mega-funds. A 2023 paper in Regional Studies by Feldman and Zoller found that place-based entrepreneurial ecosystems generate more durable employment outcomes than talent-import models, even when raw return multiples are lower. TurboFund's guide to the best US accelerators includes several Midwest-focused programs that are quietly building the infrastructure Gateway Capital is now betting on.
Distributed Capital and the Attention Gap
The cultural analog is instructive. The Hyperallergic LA show roundup and the New York April shows list together describe an art world that still gravitates toward two coasts while acknowledging that the most formally interesting work is happening in contexts that resist that gravity. Gateway's $25M is not a moon shot. It is a long-term argument that the geography of opportunity is wider than the geography of attention. TurboFund's fundraising pipeline guide is particularly relevant for Midwest founders who need to map investors beyond their immediate geography. The moon missions will be spectacular. The returns on Milwaukee may be more durable.