About — The 317

Why We Built This

The Midwest closes billions in deals every year. Almost none of it gets covered well.

The national financial press covers markets from New York and San Francisco. That lens misses most of the country — and a disproportionate share of what it misses is the Midwest. Indiana alone is home to Eli Lilly, Cummins, Steel Dynamics, Simon Property Group, and dozens of middle-market companies that move quietly and grow significantly, largely without scrutiny.

We built The 317 because we kept reading deal announcements with no context, market moves with no Midwest lens, and quarterly earnings with no local stakes attached. The region deserves coverage that treats it as the economic engine it actually is — not a footnote in a national roundup.

We're two finance students at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. We're not impartial observers — we're invested in this market and in the city. That's not a conflict. That's the point.

What We Cover

M&A

Deals

Middle-market M&A, PE buyouts, growth equity rounds, and IPOs across Indiana and the broader Midwest.

Markets

Regional market moves, macro policy shifts, and how Fed decisions land on Indiana companies and dealmakers.

Pharma

Lilly's pipeline, licensing deals, and the growing Indianapolis life sciences corridor.

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Industrials

Manufacturing, logistics, and energy companies that form the backbone of the Midwest economy.

Banking

Regional bank consolidation, credit conditions, and how capital flows through Midwest lending markets.

The Team

Co-Founder

Dhiren Dommeti

Finance & Business Analytics · Kelley School of Business, IU · '28

Dhiren built and runs The 317 — from the site architecture and design to the deal sourcing and editorial workflow. He studies finance and business analytics at Kelley, with a focus on how data shapes how markets price Midwest companies. When he isn't building this publication, he's tracking deal flow across Indiana's middle-market and looking for the story behind the numbers.

Co-Founder

Ashrith Desu

Finance · Kelley School of Business, IU · '28

Ashrith leads markets coverage and deal evaluation at The 317. He brings a finance-first lens to every story — digging into the deal structures, capital stacks, and strategic logic behind Midwest transactions. Alongside Dhiren, he sources and vets the deals that make it into The Deal Flow, with a focus on finding the transactions that matter to regional investors and operators but rarely reach a national audience.

Editorial Standards

We verify before we publish

Every deal in The Deal Flow is sourced from public filings, press releases, or direct confirmation. We don't run rumors. If a valuation is unconfirmed, we say so.

We write for practitioners, not tourists

Our readers work in finance, operate businesses, or are building careers in the Midwest. We write at that level — no hand-holding, no padding, no explaining what an LBO is.

Regional focus is a feature, not a limitation

We cover Indiana and the Midwest because that's where the underreported stories are, not because we can't see outside it. When national policy hits local companies, we connect the dots.

We're transparent about what we are

We're students, not seasoned journalists. We bring analytical rigor and genuine curiosity to every piece. We'll tell you when we're uncertain and update when we're wrong.

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