At first glance, Lincoln, Nebraska, doesn’t scream “tech hub.” There are no gleaming towers marked by venture capital logos, no Silicon Valley-like sprawl of unicorn startups and innovation districts. But look a little closer, and you’ll find a city that’s quietly and deliberately built a startup ecosystem that punches well above its weight.
Over the past five years, Lincoln’s tech sector has grown 21%, outpacing national averages. At any given time, more than 100 startups are active in the city, spanning sports tech, agtech, health innovation, and AI-powered education. And through a combination of public-private partnerships, university-fueled R&D, and hands-on incubator support, the city has laid the groundwork for one of the most quietly effective tech ecosystems in the U.S.
Hudl: A Flagship Built on Husker Football and Cloud Storage
“If you go back to 2006, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, our three founders were part of the various parts of the university, but had been working in the computer engineering school,” said Anthony Galvan, VP of Marketing at Hudl. “They were passionate about Husker sports, and they started working with the football team there at the time.”
Galvan explained how the founders saw painful workflows in exchanging game film, often involving DVDs and hours of manual effort. “They basically digitized that, all up in the cloud…one of the first companies to really do that.” He added that Hudl became one of Amazon Web Services’ earliest customers. “That all started with three people at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.”
Nearly 20 years later, Hudl now supports over 300,000 teams and 6.8 million athletes globally, with its headquarters and about 500 employees based in Lincoln. “Most of our C-suite, all of our founders, all of our executive team, most of our leadership team is all based out of Lincoln,” Galvan said. “It’s just the support of the community.”
From Software Labs to Citywide Support
“We were 52nd out of the states in venture capital,” said Bill Udell, COO of Don’t Panic Labs. “There wasn’t really much of a startup scene happening.”
That changed when local investors raised a $37.3 million venture capital fund and partnered with technologists to launch Nebraska Global. “We brought together the software engineering nerds… and then some additional space and created Nebraska Global Don’t Panic Labs to kick off creation of a bunch of startup companies,” Udell said.
That initiative sparked more than 200 software products and helped launch startups like Ocuvera and EliteForm. “Ocuvera is technology that uses AI to predict when people are going to try to get out of a hospital bed in the middle of the night so they don’t have a fall,” said Udell.
LaunchLNK and a New Generation of Startups
LaunchLNK has been instrumental in fostering Lincoln’s next generation of tech talent. “We want to increase the connectivity, the collaboration, pitch a big tent, and welcome people to come in it,” said Kathy Andersen, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development.
Andersen highlighted startups like Marble Technologies, which uses AI to automate meat processing, and Sentinel Fertigation, which optimizes fertilizer use with satellite imagery and machine learning. “They only have one season each year to get it right… and they’re already selling outside the United States,” she said.
LaunchLNK has supported 36 startups and collaborates with programs like Kiva Hub, the AgTech Innovation Hub, and Silicon Prairie Startup Week. “We do a great job of not only supporting these startups, but we’re in the trenches with them. We hired one of the startups that started in sports tech, telling athlete stories, and we did a collaboration with them to tell stories of our entrepreneurs,” Andersen said.
A City That Buys In
The success of Lincoln’s startups has been bolstered by a rare civic culture: large institutions actively serve as first customers. “Our local hospital system, Bryan Health, allowed two products under development within the allowable rules to come in and test,” said Jason Ball, President of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce.
He also pointed to Virtual Incision, a startup commercializing surgical robotics from university research. “They’ve even tested it in space to provide surgery remotely,” he said.
An Ecosystem of Scale, and a Pitch for the Future
Despite its global reach, many are still surprised Hudl is based in Nebraska. “People are always surprised that it’s in Nebraska,” Galvan said. “Almost every Premier League team, almost every NBA team, WNBA team, are using our products all the way down to high school levels.”
Now, the community is focused on future growth. Ball emphasized the importance of continued investment: “We want another two, three, four Hudl-size wins in the community, and that’s not going to come without continuing investment in public-private partnerships.”
Andersen is optimistic. “We’re really excited about one of our LaunchLNK companies. It’s called Short Answer, and they’re using AI to help kids learn to write,” she said. She also called for more corporate involvement in reverse pitch events. “We’ve had seven success stories of companies that were founded from this challenge.”
In Lincoln, the message is clear: the tech economy is growing, and it’s just getting started.
Spencer Hulse is the Editorial Director at Grit Daily. He is responsible for overseeing other editors and writers, day-to-day operations, and covering breaking news.
