An overview of the Chicago Startup Ecosystem
A few weeks ago, I moved to Chicago to join the investment team at Lightbank. Although our fund invests nationwide (and sometimes internationally), I’ve been spending my first few weeks doing a dive into Chicago's startup ecosystem in order to get a better sense of my new home.
Chicago’s tech startup scene has grown a lot over the last four years. As a student at the University of Illinois I did trips up to Chicago a few times each semester to work out of coworking spaces or meet with founders. It has been amazing to see the growth in the last few years and I’m excited to become a part of the ecosystem.
As with many of my other posts, this is meant to be dynamic. If I’ve missed anything, let me know through twitter or email (ali@afridi.io) and I’ll update it. I’ve also published this on github, so feel free to update and make a pull request to the repo. For those on github, this is published on Medium as well
Angel Groups
- Angel Investors of Chicago
- Chicago Arch Angels
- Cornerstone Angels
- Harvard Business Angels of Chicago
- Hyde Park Angels
- MD Angels (formerly TiE Angels Midwest)
- West Suburban Angels
Early Stage VC Firms (Seed & Series A):
- Apex Venture Partners *
- ARCH Venture Partners
- Baird Capital *
- Batterson Venture Partners
- Blue Cedar Ventures
- BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners
- Caerus Investment Partners
- Chicago Ventures
- Cultivian Ventures
- First Analysis Venture Capital
- Founder Equity
- Graphene Ventures
- Guild Capital
- Harbor Street Ventures
- Hyde Park Venture Partners
- Illinois Ventures - focused on companies associated with the University of Illinois
- Impact Engine
- Jumpstart Ventures
- KB Partners
- KDWC Ventures
- Lightbank
- Listen Ventures
- M25 Group
- MATH Venture Partners
- Mercury Fund
- Network Ventures
- Neighborhood Start Fund
- NextGen Venture Partners
- Nin Ventures
- N.XT Fund and NUseeds - focused on companies associated with Northwestern University
- OCA Ventures
- Origin Ventures
- Pallasite Ventures
- Pritzker Group Venture Capital *
- Promus Ventures
- Platform Ventures
- Romar Partners
- Sandbox Industries *
- Treehouse Ventures - focused on real estate and construction
- Tribal Ventures
- True North Venture Partners - focused on energy, water, agriculture and waste
- vCapital
- Vue Ventures
- West Loop Ventures - focused on B2B fintech
* also do growth investing
Growth Firms:
- Adam Street Partners
- Amiti Ventures - focused on Israeli founders
- Baxter Ventures - focused on healthcare and medical technology
- Chicago Growth Partners
- CME Ventures
- Duchossois Technology Partners
- JK&B Capital
- Jump Capital
- Lincoln Park Capital
- MK Capital
- Motorola Solutions Venture Capital
- Patho Capital - focused on healthcare companies
- Victory Park Capital
- West Suburban Angels
- Wicklow Capital
Accelerators:
- Bunker Labs Chicago - focused on companies started by veterans
- Clean Energy Trust - focused on clean energy companies
- The Cultivator
- Elmspring - focused on real estate tech
- Energy Foundry** - focused on energy
- Founder Institute Chicago - focused on companies still at the idea stage
- Good Food Accelerator - focused on farm & food businesses
- Healthbox - focused on healthcare tech
- Insight Accelerator - focused on medical devices
- Moderne Ventures** - focused on real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance & home services ventures
- Plug and Play Chicago
- Sunshine Enterprises - focused on neighborhood-based companies
- Techstars Chicago
- Venture Shot
- WiSTEM - focused on companies started by women
** also a venture fund
Startup Studios
Incubators:
- 1871
- 2112 - focused on companies in music, film/video, and creative tech
- Blue1647
- Catalyze Chicago - focused on companies with physical products
- Catapult Chicago
- Chicago Innovation Exchange
- The Garage - for founders coming out of Northwestern
- MATTER - focused on healthcare companies
- PROPEL - focused on life science startups
- TechNexus
I removed purely coworking office spaces because of the large number. ChicagoInno has a good list for anyone that is interested: http://chicagoinno.streetwise.co/2015/03/30/chicago-co-working-spaces-a-map-of-the-citys-shared-spaces/
Major blogs / press covering chicago tech:
- Blue Sky Innovation
- Built in Chicago
- Chicago Inno
- Crain’s Chicago Business, Technology Section
- Tech in Chicago podcast
Blogs from individuals in the community:
- Points and Figures (Jeff Carter)
- Eric Lefkofsky's Blog
- Breaking VC (Ezra Galston)