An overview of Chicago’s tech 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 scene has grown considerably over the last few 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 and meet founders. I saw the ecosystem grow quite a bit over my four years in college and now 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.
Angel Groups
- Angel Investors of Chicago
- Chicago Arch Angels
- Chicago Media Angels — focused on companies creating media or entertainment content
- Cornerstone Angels
- Harvard Business Angels of Chicago
- Hyde Park Angels
- Irish Angels — focused on companies started by those affiliated with the University of Notre Dame
- 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
- Roa 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
- 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
- Dashfire
- 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 outlets:
- Blue Sky Innovation
- Built in Chicago
- Chicago Inno
- Crain’s Chicago Business, Technology Section
- Tech in Chicago podcast
Blogs from people in the community:
- Breaking VC (Ezra Galston)
- Eric Lefkofsky’s Blog
- Points and Figures (Jeff Carter)
