The Greater Des Moines Story: Small Business Success

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Dwolla Joins NMI

Des Moines startup, Dwolla, has been acquired by NMI after an 18-year startup journey.

The announcement comes after the company created a culture of "We are never done," a mindset that positioned its team members for future success by taking, as founder Ben Milne put it, "product risk, regulatory risk, bank-partnership risk, developer-platform risk, geographic risk and investor-access risk simultaneously."


group of people posing at an awards ceremonyDwolla team in 2014

Dwolla's Impact

New Companies Started in Iowa by Dwolla Alumni

  • Brale
  • Hummingbirds
  • Workhound
  • Trility Consulting
  • Basis Theory

Companies and Communities Shaped by Dwolla Alumni

  • Agrisync
  • TractorZoom
  • BarnTools
  • Roboflow
  • Coviance
  • Fastpath Solutions
  • Carrot Fertility
  • Vertex
  • FarmlandFinder
  • ManchesterStory
  • Lean Techniques
  • HyVee
  • ISU Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship
  • Techstars Iowa
  • Monetery Conference
  • v-Sum
  • StartupCity Des Moines
  • Global Insurance Accelerator
  • ISU Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship
  • Greater Des Moines Partnership
  • Outside of Iowa, the list is much longer and not in any way exhaustive, including CloudFlare, Trello/Atlassian, Stripe, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Clipboard, Finex, Aeropay, gener8tor and Mastercraft Ventures to name a few.

Read the full Substack story, Beyond Moving Money: Dwolla's Outsized Impact, originally published on Friday, May 22, 2026, to learn how Dwolla impacted the startup community in Iowa and the Midwest. This story originally appeared Diana Wright's Startup Iowa Substack.

Learn More About Dwolla and NMI

Website: dwolla.com
Email: support@dwolla.com

You can read the full news announcement on NMI's acquisition here.


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Diana Wright

Diana Wright is the Director of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Greater Des Moines Partnership. She has a passion for helping others bridge their ideas and create results. In her role at The Partnership she connects and leads entrepreneurs helping them speed up their growth and success.