Best Media & Entertainment Companies in Minnesota, United States
The 154 best Media & Entertainment companies in Minnesota, United States in 2026, ranked by funding and momentum. Funding, investors, founders, valuation, tech stack and live signals. Top: SharpLink.
Ranked: Best Media & Entertainment companies in Minnesota
| # | Company | Disclosed funding | Last round | Stage | Employees | Founder | Patents & IP focus | Recent signals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SharpLink Provider of iGaming affiliate marketing network and direct-to-player marketing websites 60Growth top 14%Funding top 25%News top 25%Tech top 46% All 8 signals ▾Growthtop 14% Fundingtop 25% Newstop 25% Techtop 46% Moattop 48% Marketbottom 46% Globalbottom 37% Fin. healthbottom 35% Growth: Web rank 50,000,000 → 5,000,000 YoY · 35 acquisition/expansion moves in 24 mo Funding: Raised $429M across 2 rounds · 2 rounds over 3 yrs (0.7/yr) rank vs industry peers · Fliar Intelligence Index 60/100 | $429M | 12 mo ago | Public | 62 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Major League Soccer Provider of an online news platform for football-related content | $150M | 177 mo ago | Series C | 995 | Gary Stevenson CEO | — | — |
| 3 | Flipgrid Video discussion forum | $17M | 128 mo ago | Acquired | 24 | — | — | — |
| 4 | LifePics Online imaging solutions for photo retailers, grocery chains, and professional photographers | $11M | 202 mo ago | Acquired | 21 | Vahe Christianian Founder | — | — |
| 5 | Lemonada Online podcast network | $10M | 52 mo ago | Acquired | 70 | Stephanie Wachs Co-Founder & CCO | — | 3 job openings |
| 6 | BringMeTheNews Curated news about Minnesota | $4M | 166 mo ago | Acquired | 27 | — | — | — |
| 7 | Mora Global Social media platform for interpersonal communication | $3M | 89 mo ago | Seed | 1 | — | — | — |
| 8 | Captionmax Media captioning solutions provider | $2M | 189 mo ago | Acquired | 200 | Truck Morrison CEO & President | — | — |
| 9 | Digitiliti Online platform offering multi-category news | $2M | 183 mo ago | Seed | 14 | D Herbeck CEO | 4 patents Patents concentrated in computing, sensing & instrumentation | — |
| 10 | NextGem Online social platform for trade card enthusiasts | $2M | 52 mo ago | Seed | 6 | James Francesco Co-Founder | — | — |
| 11 | MIIR Audio Tech Developer of music intelligence software | $2M | 27 mo ago | Seed | 8 | Paul J Moe CEO | — | — |
| 12 | Naviga Content engagement and advertising platform | $1M | 99 mo ago | Seed | 283 | — | — | — |
| 13 | DigitalTown Online Community Management platform | $1M | 170 mo ago | Deadpooled | — | Robert Monster CEO | — | — |
| 14 | FiDef Provider of audio processing tool | $410K | 123 mo ago | Seed | 6 | Jayson Tomlin Founder | — | — |
| 15 | Coffeehousepress Publisher of literary fiction, essays, and poetry | $300K | 17 mo ago | Funding Raised | 73 | — | — | — |
| 16 | SwapBeats Social music creation marketplace | $300K | 160 mo ago | Deadpooled | — | David Atkinson Founder & CEO | — | — |
| 17 | Ekwe.app Online platform offering music creation solutions 53Talent top 27%Tech top 31%Partners top 33%Market top 36% All 8 signals ▾Talenttop 27% Techtop 31% Partnerstop 33% Markettop 36% Newsbottom 45% Growthbottom 32% Fundingbottom 31% Globalbottom 25% Talent: 3 named leaders on record · 3 C-suite/founder profiles curated Tech: 41 technologies across 5/8 capability areas · Cloud: Akamai, Amazon Cloudfront rank vs industry peers · Fliar Intelligence Index 53/100 | $250K | 51 mo ago | Seed | — | Harold Eason Co-CEO | — | 6 job openings |
| 18 | Slice Engine Content curation tool for mobile-based platforms | $200K | 129 mo ago | Deadpooled | 6 | — | — | — |
| 19 | Summer Playbook Social platform for students to discover people and meet offline | $120K | 96 mo ago | Seed | 2 | Sean Sullivan Co-Founder | — | — |
Top 12 Media & Entertainment companies in Minnesota
#1
Public · Minneapolis, Minnesota · founded 2019 · 62 employees$429.4Mraised▾
Provider of iGaming affiliate marketing network and direct-to-player marketing websites. The company focuses on driving qualified traffic and player acquisitions, retention, and conversions to iGaming operator partners. It owns and operates affiliate marketing websites designed to attract sports betting and online casino gaming traffic to partners.
- May 2025Post IPO$425M
- Feb 2023Post IPO$4.4M
#2
Funding Raised · Minneapolis, Minnesota · founded 1984 · 73 employees$300Kraised▾
Publisher of literary fiction, essays, and poetry. It focuses on experimental and genre-bending works. The publisher supports emerging and established authors through its publishing program, which includes internships and artist residencies. It also offers subscriptions and sells books directly to consumers. The organization actively engages with educators and booksellers. It manages rights and permissions for its publications.
- Jan 2025Grant (prize money)$70K
- Mar 2012Grant (prize money)$60K
- Feb 2011Grant (prize money)$60K
- Dec 2009Grant (prize money)$60K
#3
Seed · Minnetonka, Minnesota · founded 2020 · 8 employees$1.8Mraised▾
Developer of music intelligence software designed to identify phrases of music. The company's software uses data analysis to retrieve the impactful musical moments of recorded songs and also offers a proprietary algorithm that extracts musical data within themes, enabling customers to have meaningful moments that elicit a physical and autonomic response.
#4
Series C · Blaine, Minnesota · founded 1996 · 995 employees$150Mraised▾
Provider of an online news platform for football-related content. It provides users with a sports media platform offering sports news, live scores and content for soccer. It also offers league-specific news, results, stats, standings, and highlights.
- Sep 2011PE—
- Series C$150M
#5
Acquired · Minneapolis, Minnesota · founded 2019 · 70 employees$10.4Mraised▾
Lemonada is a podcast network. It has podcasts that discuss human experiences. The platform also provides a forum for users to discuss the podcasts published. It also has a platform for selling merchandise for the podcast network.
- Jan 2022Series A$8M
- Feb 2021Seed$1M
- Jun 2020Seed$1.4M
- Apr 2020Conventional Debt$180K
#6
Acquired · Minnetonka, Minnesota · founded 2000 · 21 employees$11.1Mraised▾
LifePics provides online imaging solutions. They cater to photo retailers, grocery chains, and professional photographers. They provide customized websites and software solutions so that professional photographers and retail photo businesses can accept orders and offer other services to customers online. It claims to have more than 20,000 retail stores as customers. Their solution works with a variety of photo software providers and photo websites. Their solution provides services like orders directly sent to stores or routed to major wholesalers, gift providers, photo book manufacturers, or a variety of other printers.
- Aug 2009Series A$2M
- 2008Series A$1.4M
- Oct 2007Series A$2M
- Aug 2006Series A$3.8M
#7
Acquired · Minneapolis, Minnesota · founded 2012 · 24 employees$17.4Mraised▾
Flipgrid, a product of Vidku, provides a platform for classroom discussions and company interactions. Video responses can be made uploaded in response to a question posted on the forum. The answers are posted in a grid. Works on a premium model. Available on iOS and Android. Over 4.5 million videos have been created on the platform as of Dec 2015. Recipient of Webby Award, Davey Award and W3 Award.
- Oct 2015Series A$17.4M
- Feb 2015Seed$17M
#8
Seed · Minneapolis, Minnesota · founded 2021 · 6 employees$1.8Mraised▾
Online social platform for trade card enthusiasts. The platform allows users to digitize their cards, find rare cards, interact with other enthusiasts, and more.
- Feb 2022Seed$1.8M
#9
Seed · Minnetonka, Minnesota · founded 2016 · 1 employees$3.2Mraised▾
Mora Global provides a social media platform for interpersonal communication. It is developing a social media application to share human emotions and communication with music across the world.
- Dec 2018Seed$125K
- Jun 2018Seed$50K
- Mar 2018Seed$1.7M
- Aug 2017Seed$745K
#10
Acquired · Minneapolis, Minnesota · founded 2009 · 27 employees$4Mraised▾
BringMeTheNews filters through hundreds of news sources and social platforms to look for best stories that affect Minnesotans. Mentions where a story at BringMeTheNews comes from, also whether the content is reported or sponsored and if it’s sponsored, by whom. Its mobile app is available for Android devices.
- Jul 2012Series A$3M
- Aug 2010Seed$1M
#11
Seed · Saint Paul, Minnesota · founded 2006 · 14 employees$1.9Mraised▾
Online platform offering multi-category news. It provides news under various categories including politics, entertainment, business, sports, finance, and others. It monetises through display advertisements.
- Mar 2011Seed$1.2M
- Nov 2009Seed$750K
#12
Seed · Bloomington, Minnesota · founded 2018 · 283 employees$1.5Mraised▾
Naviga provides a content engagement and advertising platform. It helps brands to create, engage, deliver and monetize content. It allows for managing content, building an audience, and engage customers. It offers a management system that allows users to access the content anywhere and anytime.
- Mar 2018Seed$1.5M
Funding & investor landscape
Notable founders
Market landscape — 10 sub-themes by coverage
Share of Media & Entertainment coverage by sub-theme.
Regulatory-risk over time rising
Funding & growth over time
funding rising · growth rising
Common questions
Sweetie watches where the money and the users are piling in. She covers sector wealth and momentum — the install curves and revenue pools that show which corners of the market are quietly on fire.