Photo Steelhead Technologies social website

CALUMET – Steelhead Technologies recently announced an $84 million growth investment from Mainsail Partners. The funding will be used to expand the platform’s capabilities and Steelhead’s suite of AI-driven tools that are designed to help shops maximize their efficiency and profitability, according to a release from Mainsail Partners, a growth equity firm that specializes in partnering with vertical SaaS (software as a service) businesses.

Steelhead Technologies, headquartered on Fifth Street in Calumet, an all-in-one enterprise resource planning (ERP) software purpose-built for metal finishers and fabricators, used in manufacturing to improve the process, profitability and quality of manufacturers and shops.

According to a Mainsail press release, Steelhead was founded in 2021 to solve a long-standing gap in the market: manufacturers want to grow, but struggle with manual processes and outdated systems that add time and cost to each transaction. Instead of spreadsheets and paper travelers, Steelhead’s cloud-based platform digitizes the shop floor, streamlining quoting, scheduling, inventory, production tracking, quality and accounting into a single, easy-to-use system. Customers have processed more than 1.6 billion parts on the platform and their revenue trends indicate a 17% annual growth rate.

Michigan Technological University’s online Gateway Magazine in 2024 notes over 70 percent of Steelhead’s full-time roster are MTU alumni, and several part-time employees are working on their Tech degrees.

Gateway goes on to say Steelhead started small with a few engineers and one or two customers. Now, they have more than 50 employees and customers in 28 states. The Upper Peninsula’s low cost of living, coupled with the resources at Michigan Tech, has kept the Steelhead headquarters and technical team firmly planted “up north,” even as the sales team has spread out across Michigan and the Great Lakes region.