Last week we learned what it takes to be a "fire starter" in Chicago's startup community.
Now check out which tech firms we think are off to a hot start in their startup journeys — the "embers" in this year's Inno Fire Awards.
Every year, Chicago Inno highlights 50 companies making big headlines in Chicago's startup community. While there are plenty of local startups that have pulled in early-stage funding and are expanding their teams and developing new technology, only 12 made the cut for the "embers" category this year.
For the rest of Chicago Inno's Fire Awards, including our "fire starters," "clean energy," "burning hot" and "ready to explode" categories, check out the full list.
Chicago Inno's embers include a "Shark Tank" alumn, a growing flexible workspace operator and a few startups that have formed out of local universities.
Embers were also the ones that kept the fire going at a time when venture capitalists have become more cautious. They include a wide array of companies across biotech, medtech and even cannabis. And some, like Level Ex, are already seeing their technology used in the real world.
Here are Chicago Inno's 2024 Fire Awards "embers" winners:
Skokie, Illinois-based 3D printing startup Azul 3D wants to be at the future of digital manufacturing. The startup raised $15 million in Series A funding in late 2023 and in June launched its newest product, the Ocean printing platform. The company says Ocean is the world's largest and most productive area-wide 3D printing solution and it will offer new engineering possibilities to improve polymer production.
Founded by Mark Cozzi and Drake Nickell, Chicago-based cannabis edibles brand The Bettering Co. opened its new manufacturing facility last year after raising $6.7 million in new funding. The funds were used in part to complete the startup's first production facility in Rockford, which came with a commercial kitchen.
Chicago's smokeless tobacco company Black Buffalo has tripled its sales growth in the last 12 months, selling the fastest-growing nicotine pouches in the country. Sold both online and through major convenience store retailers, the brand has added 7,000 new retail locations over the past year. The Chicago startup raised $30 million of equity capital led by The Pritzker Organization in 2022.
Chicago startup Cour Pharmaceuticals raised $105 million to begin the year in a Series A with participation by pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Bristol Myers Squibb. The company uses proprietary nanoparticle technology to address a wide range of immune and inflammatory conditions, and CEO John Puisis told Chicago Inno that the funding would help the biotech startup move from being a tech company to one driven by clinical trials.
Crypto startup Cube Group moved into new offices in Fulton Market earlier this year and is coming off a $9 million dollar seed raise in October.
One of Chicago Inno's startups to watch in 2024, Flow Medical is one of 65 startups from around the world that will participate in the latest cohort of the Los Angeles-based MedTech Innovator accelerator. Founded by University of Chicago researchers Jonathan Paul and Osman Ahmed, Flow Medical received a $1 million investment last year to help it move to commercialization and step outside the University of Chicago's ecosystem. The company also brought in Jennifer Fried, an early-stage health care investor and startup founder, as co-founder and CEO.
Level Ex is going to space. The tech startup — or at least its technology — is one of 38 projects selected for astronauts to conduct on the five-day SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission, where the company hopes to demonstrate that an untrained astronaut with no medical background can do ultrasounds in space.
After appearing on ABC's "Shark Tank" in March and striking a deal with Mark Cuban, Mella Pet Care is focused on growth in 2024. The Chicago startup wants to make taking your pet's temperature a little easier with a new thermometer.
Supply chain startup Nutrad was named the most innovative startup at the Transform Data Science and AI Accelerator at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to end 2023. The company aims to replace tedious, error-prone, manual tasks in the supply chain with artificial intelligence.
Northwestern spinout Rhaeos makes a medical device called FlowSense that tracks cerebrospinal fluid flow in shunted hydrocephalus patients through a wearable skin patch. From well-known Chicago inventor John Rogers, the company closed a $10.5 million Series A round in February 2023, but it didn't stop there. The Chicago startup received a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and an additional grant from the Midwest Pediatric Device Consortium earlier this year.
Since its $3.1 million raise in September, Partum Health has continued to remain active in Chicago's tech scene. The health startup offering birth and postpartum doula care was named a finalist in 1871's WMNtech Pitch Competition and participated in Matter's 51 Labs accelerator.
Not all flexible workspace operators faced the same problems WeWork did in 2023. As the coworking space giant shrunk last year, Worbox grew. The Chicago coworking space operator announced $17.5 million in Series A financing earlier this month — bringing its total funding to date to $25 million — and plans to add another 10 locations nationally by the end of 2025. Workbox is opening at a former WeWork location in Fulton Market, which was among several spaces WeWork announced it would not be keeping.
Meet these honorees and more at Chicago Inno's first in-person Fire Awards event since 2019, to be held Tuesday, Aug. 27, at TeamWorking by TechNexus. There we will also reveal the Blazer winners, the "embers" and other honorees that stood out in each category.
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