As 2023 gets underway, Chicago Inno is looking ahead with our Startups to Watch list, a collection of early-stage startups poised for growth in the years to come.
We've compiled this list each year since 2014, with the goal of highlighting up-and-coming startups that have shown early signs of promise and the potential to make a big impact.
This year's list features startups across a broad variety of industries — from food tech to jewelry insurance, products for Web3 and some that are just trying to get a little extra dough for their customers. Our 23 Startups to Watch in 2023 are tackling single-use water bottle waste, offering alternative meat products and looking for new ways to get saliva testing done more efficiently.
With no sector taking up more than 12% of the overall market, Chicago's diverse economy has ensured that startups of all shapes and sizes can thrive here. On our list you'll find consumer companies, B2B software providers, health care platforms and tools for making the world a cleaner place. The companies featured here, generally speaking, have raised a Series A round of funding or smaller and have been founded within the last three years.
To help us compile this year’s Startups to Watch, we reached out to Chicago venture capitalists, founders and other tech leaders to help shape the list, and we also used information from our reporting throughout the year. (New to Chicago Inno? You can follow our work by subscribing to the Chicago Inno Beat, our daily email newsletter on all things Chicago tech.)
Dive into our 23 Startups to Watch in 2023 below.
APFusion
After announcing $6.5 million in seed funding, Champaign-based startup APFusion is focused on modernizing the auto salvage industry. The automotive B2B marketplace and software company was built as a way to connect new aftermarket parts providers with salvage yards. The marketplace saw explosive growth in 2022 and plans to expand the number of products it has available.
BriteCo
After bringing in $9 million in a Series A round that closed in April, Jewelry insurance startup BriteCo wants to take on the insurance giants with its tech-forward solution that covers jewelry for less money. Founded in 2017 by Dustin Lemick, a third-generation jeweler whose grandfather started a Chicago jewelry shop in the 1950s, BriteCo has built an online insurance platform that lets its users quickly see quotes and purchase coverage online. The company previously raised a $2 million seed round in 2019.
Clever Carnivore
Clever Carnivore is looking to take the slaughter out of meat production. The meat-making biotechnology startup opened a new 4,200-square-foot facility at 2430 N. Halsted St. in Lincoln Park and raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding in 2022. Interested in disrupting the cultivated meat market, Clever Carnivore makes actual pork, beef and chicken using stem cell biology and bioengineering.
Clouty
David Umeh moved his startup Clouty from San Francisco to Chicago during the height of the pandemic. Shortly after arriving, he was accepted into 1871’s first BLK•Tech with Verizon accelerator program and this past year received funding from Chicago venture capital firm LongJump. Clouty works at the intersection of data, music and finance, making music a tradable asset.
Entrée
Led by co-owner Jason Weingarten, a founder and current board member of Chicago startup Yello, and co-founder Jon Bell, a former product lead at Netflix, Entrée offers a new delivery platform designed to bring a fine dining experience into customers’ homes. The Chicago startup has shown strong growth month-over-month with a growing fanbase in Chicago and early investors that include M25.
Fly.io
Led by CEO Kurt Mackey, who sold his previous company to IBM, Fly.io last year raised $37 million across two rounds of funding, including a $12 million Series A led by Intel that it closed last year and a $25 million Series B it raised over the summer. Founded in 2017, the startup has now raised more than $40 million to date. Described as "one of the fastest-growing core infrastructure companies” ever seen by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Fly.io has developed a public cloud where developers can run applications and databases more efficiently. Its customers include companies like Cars.com and Fanatics, which use Fly.io to make their websites more responsive for their customers.
FranShares
Founded by Kenny Rose in 2020, FranShares wants to give anyone the chance to invest in franchises and bring fractional franchise ownership to any investor. In a funding round led by Chicago Ventures, FranShares raised $1.4 million in August 2021 to grow the new investment platform.
Improovy
After participating in Techstars Chicago's 2020 cohort, Improovy landed some seed funding over the summer ahead of plans to expand to new markets. Founded in 2019, the Chicago startup that helps users find painters raised $2.8 million last year in a round led by Chicago VC firm M25. The platform connects homeowners with painting contractors, allowing users to compare multiple painters, read reviews and select a contractor. Led by CEO and co-founder Andre Kazimierski, the startup also named Garry Cooper, CEO of Rheaply, to its board of directors.
Kadeya
Manuela Zoninsein, founder and CEO of Kadeya, sees the Chicago startup’s business model as being similar to Divvy, Chicago's bike-share system, but with a network of bottling stations and reusable, digitally identifiable bottles. With Kadeya, she wants to eliminate the need for disposable, single-use plastic water bottles using a closed loop beverage vending system. Zoninsein plans to deploy 10 units in 2023 and is currently taking pre-sale orders. Kadeya was named to the Techstars Farm to Fork foodtech accelerator class of 2022.
KeyCare
Virtual care platform KeyCare completed its Series A funding to begin the year, ending the round at $27 million. KeyCare helps schedule patient appointments with a nationwide network of virtual care groups and uses Epic Systems' electronic health record software to ensure a seamless experience and accurate record.
Kodex
Designed as a kind of GoDaddy but for Web3 — the evolution of the World Wide Web built with decentralized blockchains such as Bitcoin and NFT — Kodex launched its beta version in November after announcing a $2 million seed round led by Origin Ventures. The Chicago-based crypto domain company allows users to discover, buy, sell, auction and lease Web3 domains, providing a human-readable domain rather than a random 48-character public key.
Metric
A platform that measures and manages environmental, social and governance (ESG ) data for private companies and investors, Chicago startup Metric aims to help protect brands, reduce risk and unlock new growth opportunities for companies. Led by founder and CEO Megan Murday, a former strategy and analytics consultant at Deloitte, Metric can be found in the Merchandise Mart.
Mezo
Technology platform Mezo announced a $6 million seed investment before the end of 2022 with participation from The 81 Collection and other angels. Founded in 2020 as a one-trip resolution source for home-maintenance needs, the company was launched as a telehealth-inspired model for property maintenance. Built by trade experts, the platform decides whether a job requires a specialized skillset and prioritizes emergencies.
OrisDX
OrisDX wants to test for oral cancers with just a sample of saliva. The company won first place and $665,000 in funding from the University of Chicago's New Venture Challenge, an annual student startup competition that's featured past breakout Chicago companies such as Grubhub, Braintree, Tovala, SimpleMills and Foxtrot. Led by Nishant Agrawal, a faculty physician at UChicago and a co-founder of OrisDX, along with Chetan Bettegowda, Rifat Hasina and Evgeny Izumchenko, the startup is creating a noninvasive diagnostics and screening tool to help detect oral, head and neck cancers earlier.
Parentaly
Allison Whalen decided to take matters into her own hands when it comes to parental leave. She launched Parentaly, a workplace benefit that helps companies and employees make parental leave a more seamless process. It focuses on helping companies with work that needs to be completed prior to leave, how to handle work in the interim and how to re-onboard parents when they return. The startup announced it raised $1.4 million in seed funding in April from Hunt Club CEO Nick Cromydas and G2 CEO Godard Abel, along with Chicago VC firms 81 Collection and Network Ventures.
Protégé
Founded by former executives at Cameo and Trunk Club, Protégé is a mix of Cameo, MasterClass and "The Voice.” The Chicago startup connects up-and-coming talent with celebrities, coaches and other top experts who can provide feedback and mentorship and lets users send a 60-second video clip to anyone in the startup’s network. Protégé raised $8.5 million in 2022 in a round led by Sequoia Capital.
ReloShare
Named a finalist in last year’s 1871 Momentum Awards, ReloShare is a custom hotel booking site that provides an outlet for social service agencies like domestic violence shelters and human trafficking response agencies, and other clients and sectors that have been overlooked, to book hotel rooms with complete anonymity. In June, the startup saw its 200th agency sign up to use its Safe Stays program and in 2021 was named a Chicago Innovation Award winner for its unique technology solution to social service crisis housing.
Roomii
Roomii founder and CEO Dapo Kolawole is trying to make moving easier for renters. First launched in Chicago, and founded in the 1871 coworking space inside Chicago's Merchandise Mart, the startup has been backed by Fifth Star Funds, a Chicago-based venture capital fund specifically dedicated to backing Black founders in Chicago. The online marketplace, calling itself the Airbnb of furniture, gives its users the option to either rent, sell or buy furniture for one month up to a year, allowing them to move freely without a sofa tethering them to a single location.
Sabanto
Agtech startup Sabanto Inc. wants to bring farming into the 21st century with its automation technology. The Chicago startup aims to add more automation to the agriculture industry and in turn help solve some of the labor challenges seen across the sector. The agtech startup raised a $17 million Series A in 2022 that will be used to make autonomy an affordable, reliable and scalable solution for farmers throughout the world. Sabanto said it can automate a variety of row crop field operations and has used tractors to autonomously till, plant, seed, weed and mow farmland across the Midwest.
Speede Fitness
Dan Mooney created Speede Fitness, a strength-training startup, to help athletes avoid injuries like the one that cut his baseball career short. He developed a new fitness machine that's intended to shorten training time and to build muscle more quickly than traditional training methods. The company raised $5 million in seed funding from investors including Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields, cornerback Jaylon Johnson and tight end Cole Kmet. Mooney hopes to sell around 1,000 to 1,500 units in the company's first year.
SwayPay
Kaeya Majmundar got her first taste of entrepreneurship at 19 when she created the BZBox, which eventually got her a spot on ABC's "Shark Tank,” where she landed a handshake deal with Lori Greiner. Roughly 10 years of experience of ideating on products shaped her next startup Swaypay, a Chicago-based app that raised $4.2 million last year. The app is simple: Swaypay automatically identifies when users have bought something from one of its partnering brands — like Nike, Champion or McDonald's — and gives them cash back when they post about the product on TikTok.
Synapticure
Founded by Brian Wallach, a former federal prosecutor who was diagnosed with ALS in 2017, and his wife, Sandra Abrevaya, the former president of education nonprofit Thrive Chicago, Synapticure has created a telemedicine platform for ALS patients. The platform connects them virtually with a team of caregivers that helps them through every step of their journey. The startup has partnered with ALS clinics across the country, including Massachusetts General Hospital and University of California San Francisco and in February announced it raised $6 million in seed funding.
Tandym
Founded by former Capital One executives, Tandym wants to make branded credit cards more available to small businesses. The private-label credit card provider has raised two equity rounds — $2.2 million in pre-seed funds and $8 million for its seed round — in addition to $50 million in debt financing provided by global alternative asset manager Rivonia Road Capital announced in August.
