Chicago is a town known for building pragmatic, B2B-focused tech companies focused largely on revenue and profitability. While those are admirable qualities---and certainly characteristics that have helped boost the city's burgeoning tech scene---Chicago's startup ecosystem has developed a reputation for not tackling big, ambitious, risky problems.
These kinds of projects are often referred to as "moonshots;" attempts by businesses to take big swings at issues that, if successful, could have massive societal impacts. Alphabet has an entire moonshot factory, called "X," where it's working to solve some of the world's hardest problems, ranging from drone delivery to using balloons to bring internet to rural areas.
But that's not to say Chicago is devoid of moonshots. In fact, Alphabet-backed cybersecurity startup Chronicle, born out of X's moonshot factory, recently opened a Chicago engineering office—its largest outside of Silicon Valley—to plug into Chicago's growing talent base.
As the 50th anniversary of the moon landing approaches this week, Chicago Inno wanted to take a moment to spotlight some of the moonshot startups in the city that are working on projects that, if they achieve their goal, could make the world smarter, safer, healthier and happier. You can see our list of 12 Chicago Moonshot startups here.
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Perhaps no Chicago tech entrepreneur knows moonshots better than Chris Gladwin. Gladwin is a bonafide serial moonshot founder---having built companies like Music Now, a pioneer in the digital music space that launched a full five years before iTunes, and Cleversafe, a startup that built revolutionary technology around data storage and eventually sold to IBM for more than $1 billion.
His next project is Ocient, a startup that wants to analyze big data. Really big data. As the amount of data the world produces increases rapidly, companies are going to have major challenges making sense of that data. Ocient wants to be that solution not today, but years from now.
"It's a 'go extremely big' or 'go home' kind of endeavor," Glawdin said.
Ocient, founded three years ago, has grown to 50 employees, raised at least $10 million in funding, and is pretty tight-lipped about the rest. Gladwin declined to talk about customers or revenue, but noted that Cleversafe didn't get its first customer until year six.
"It's an audacious goal to say we’re going to build the technology that the world’s going to use to analyze all this data," he said. "Particularly the data we’ll have in the future, which is an incomprehensibly large amount of information."
Gladwin said Chicago needs these type of ambitious, large-scale projects to elevate its status as a tech hub. Gladwin also heads up P33, an initiative to turn Chicago into a "tier one" tech hub. In a way, P33 is its own moonshot, Gladwin acknowledged, as city tech leaders work on a plan to put Chicago at the center of the technological map.
"P33 is its own version of an audacious goal," Gladwin said.
Another clear Chicago moonshot is Tempus, a cancer-fighting startup led by Groupon founder Eric Lefkofsky that uses machine learning and genomic sequencing to better understand a patient’s tumor, and helps physicians tailor treatment plans that are best suited to combat it.
Tempus is one of the most heavily venture-backed startups ever in Chicago, having raised more than half a billion dollars. It last raised a $200 million round in May, valuing the four-year-old company at more than $3 billion.
"The problem that we were looking to tackle was this comprehensive problem. Physicians didn’t have access to the right information and the right data to really personalize treatment," said Ryan Fukushima, Tempus' COO who launched the startup alongside Lefkofsky.
Tempus' platform analyzes molecular and therapeutic data at scale, enabling physicians to make real-time, data-driven decisions to better treat their patients. And while there are other companies working on genomic sequencing and precision medicine, no other company is both organizing clinical data and analyzing tumors to help physicians personalize treatment, Fukushima said.
Tempus says its platform today touches more than one in four cancer patients in the U.S., and it's expanding into other areas of care, such as diabetes and depression.
But being a moonshot doesn't just mean curing cancer and raising hundreds of millions in venture capital. Keyo, a startup founded in Chicago two years ago, wants to change the way you make payments, unlock doors, redeem tickets and clock in for work---all with the palm of your hand.
Keyo is building what it calls the first privacy-focused identity network by using your hand, rather than facial recognition or other biometrics, as your ID. It uses near-infrared light and the hemoglobin in your blood to map the internal vein structure of your palm, registering roughly 5 million distinct points of reference in your hand.
Keyo's sensors can then read those reference points when you wave your hand over its device. Co-founder and CEO Cayetana Polanco said more than 40 companies are building solutions based on Keyo’s technology, though she declined to name them citing non-disclosure agreements. Keyo is working with large credit card brands, a transportation system in Mexico and colleges in Western Africa. It's been used at coffee shops and vending machines in Chicago.
Beyond the simple convenience of not needing your wallet or keys, Keyo believes it can offer something even greater---an identification network that sets the standard for privacy. The company says it won't give away your biometrics, and it creates a system that relies on consent from the user (i.e. waving your hand over a device) in a way that facial recognition does not.
"The moment your face is out there, it's a moment that you stop having control," Polanco said.
The startup has raised about $3.5 million in funding to date, and is eyeing a Series A round in the near future.
"Our job is to invest in interesting areas with massive pain points where others aren’t looking."
Investing in moonshots can be tricky. While big ideas have the potential to grow into big businesses, they're often risky bets for early-stage VCs who are looking for a return on their investment. That's perhaps even more true in the Midwest, where many investors put added emphasis on revenue early on.
Promus Ventures, a Chicago VC firm, invests in so-called "deep-tech" companies, including several space startups such as Rocket Labs, Spire and ICEYE. The firm has also backed synthetic biology startups, remote robotic security guards, and mapping for autonomous vehicles.
"What truly excites us about our deep-tech investments is that we are trying to help solve some of the world’s greatest pain points today," said Mike Collett, Promus' founder and managing partner. "We don’t set out to make the most audacious investments we can find, rather our job is to invest in interesting areas with massive pain points where others aren’t looking, which generally leads us to industries and places others consider too risky at the stage we are entering."
From solving the biggest challenges in healthcare, to creating protein from plants and helping solve wireless charging, go deeper into our list of Chicago moonshot startups here.
To check out moonshots in all 13 Inno markets, click here.
