Milwaukee startup SteamChain has plans to as much as double the funding round it is currently working on after receiving strong investor interest in the company.
The Machine as a Service company is currently working to raise $300,000 and has already raised $140,000 of that. But now, co-founder Michael Cromheecke is considering increasing the total goal to as much as $600,000.
“We are receiving offers and interest at higher investments, so we’re evaluating those,” he said. “A few in-state organizations have expressed an interest and we’ve also got some interesting conversations going on outside the state.”
SteamChain was founded in September 2017 and offers a blockchain-based software to machine builders. The machine builders can use the software to offer their manufacturer customers usage-based financing to monetize the lifecycle of the equipment.
So far, SteamChain has received investments from its founders; Milwaukee startup accelerator gener8tor, which it participated in this past fall in return for an equity investment of up to $140,000; and BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation Inc., which recently contributed $50,000. Cromheecke expects to complete the seed round this fall.
The funding will be used to hire more employees, particularly those with software development skills, Cromheecke said. The company currently has six part-time and full-time employees, with plans to add another four to six over the next 12 months.
“We’ll be hiring developers, we will be adding to our customer service organization, as well as our sales organization,” he said. “We’re getting a lot of interest from the core market that we’ve been talking to about this and there’s an eagerness and an application for exactly what we’re promoting.”
