Chicago Inno's 50 on Fire list is here!
Today, we’re officially announcing the 50 people and companies that are heating up Chicago tech. Over the next few weeks, we’ll spotlight a few of these companies in stories and in our newsletter, The Beat.
We invite you and your team, friends, family – and anyone that wants to network with Chicago startups – to join us November 1 at Moonlight Studios to celebrate this year's winners as we honor the individuals and companies that continue to keep Chicago on top. At the event, we’ll also announce the seven people and companies, one from each category, that a panel of esteemed judges have selected as the Inno Blazer winners. Get tickets here.
If you've been to our annual 50 on Fire event before, you'll see we're doing things a little differently this year. We previously announced 150 finalists prior to the event, and revealed the 50 winners at the ceremony. By unveiling the 50 now and gathering everyone at the event, we allow for the community as a whole to celebrate those that are driving Chicago forward.
So, now to the most important question. What makes a company or individual on fire? We’re looking at people and startups that have had a banner year---whether that's new funding, recent product launches, big hires or innovative approaches to solving problems.
Winners were sourced by nominations and selected by the Chicago Inno editorial team. Now, let’s get to the list…
B2B
Ablorde Ashigbi, Founder and CEO, 4 Degrees: Ashigbi left his role at Pritzker Group Venture Capital in 2017 to launch 4Degrees, a startup making an online platform to help users manage important contacts within their network. The startup, which participated in Techstars Chicago in 2017, raised $1 million earlier this year.
Alicia Driskill, founder and CEO, evolveHer: Driskill opened the doors of women-only co-working space evolveHer at the beginning of this year. Since then, the co-working space has attracted many tenants and now has partnerships with several major companies, such as Nike, Golin, General Assembly, Let’s Vibe and Startups Next.
Catalytic: Catalytic emerged out of nowhere in 2016 with 11.1 million in funding from big-name investors like NEA, Valor Equity and many of Chicago's top VC firms. The startup, which uses artificial intelligence to help companies automate business processes, raised an additional $5.6 million in new funding this year as it looks to expand its team.
Crafty: The startup, which delivers food and beverages to offices, has grown quickly in Chicago. Crafty stocks offices with snacks, drinks and other items using its inventory technology to keep offices stocked up and happy.
Civis Analytics: The data science company founded by Dan Wagner, the chief analytics officer of President Obama's 2012 campaign, has been growing over the last year. Their user base grew by 145 percent since 2017 to more than 200, and they have a 90 percent customer retention rate. Additionally, the company says more than 100 apps have been built on their platform.
Dhruv Saxena and Divey Gulati, co-founders, ShipBob: Saxena and Gulati founded ShipBob in 2014 with the goal of helping small companies ship their products faster. Four years later, the company has raised more than $62 million, with the help of a $40 million round just in September. In June, the startup made the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Companies to Watch 2018, an annual list that spotlights 25 “emerging leaders in hot corners of the tech industry.”
G2 Crowd: G2 Crowd, one of Chicago's fastest-growing startups---jumping from 60 to 180 employees in the last two years---renamed Godard Abel as its CEO this year. Abel founded the software review platform, but left the startup when his other business, Steelbrick, sold to Salesforce for $360 million. G2 Crowd raised a $30 million round last year from Accel and LinkedIn, and is eyeing an IPO in the not-to-distant future.
Jeremy von Halle, senior director of revenue operations, Jellyvision: Since von Halle joined Jellyvision in 2016, the company has increased its customer base by 50 percent, going from 800 to 1200 customers. Jellyvision also now services 111 of the Fortune 500.
Karen Sauder, head of Google's Chicago office: In June, Google named Karen Sauder to lead its expanding Chicago office. She joined Google in 2011 to launch the company’s Chicago-based consumer goods division, and was promoted to vice president of sales in April. Sauder's promotion comes as Google continues to grow in Chicago, expanding its Fulton Market office space and launching a physical retail store.
LogicGate: LogicGate, a member of the 2016 Techstars Chicago class, raised $7.5 million in new funding this year for its risk and compliance automation software. Its platform helps businesses automate their risk and compliance programs with an easy to use drag-and-drop interface that doesn’t require any coding know-how.
PerkSpot: PerkSpot was a relatively unknown Chicago startup until it raised a $50 million round in August. The capital was the first outside funding the company has taken in its 12-year history. PerkSpot makes a workplace benefit platform that employers can offer their employees to give them discounts at particular retailers, ranging from movie theaters and restaurants to superstores and car companies.
Sanjay Sood, vice president of highly automated driving, HERE Technologies: Sood leads the entire global team at HERE Technologies, a Berlin-based international mapping tech company with a large Chicago presence. Sood has helped build one of the largest artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision teams in the Midwest.
The Mom Project: The Mom Project, a Chicago startup that’s built an online platform to connect employers to viable female candidates, raised $2.6 million in May to help it expand across more markets. The startup takes a special interest in matching women who have left the job market to start a family or for other personal reasons get back into it. Last September, the startup helped BP launch the BP Returnship Program, an initiative to help these kind of women re-enter a competitive job market through roles at the oil company.
B2C
ChangEd: Founded in 2016, ChangEd has created a mobile app that helps users pay off their student loans with spare change from everyday purchases. Earlier this year, ChangEd appeared on Shark Tank and received an investment from Mark Cuban. Additionally, it recently hit a huge milestone, sending more than $1 million toward student loan payments.
Designation: Just in August, the Chicago-based digital design program was acquired by Flatiron School, a coding bootcamp owned by WeWork. Designation, founded in 2014, is a program that trains UI and UX designers. Designation’s students have landed design jobs at companies like Facebook, Allstate and Capital One. The company says it has graduated more than 500 designers, and 96 percent of its grads find work within six months.
Farmers Fridge: Founded in 2013, Farmer’s Fridge creates “smart” fridges that are stocked with healthy meals and snacks. Earlier this month, the startup raised a $30 million Series C round led by Innovation Endeavors, a venture firm founded by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, bringing its total funding to more than $40 million.
Grubhub: Grubhub continues to be one of Chicago's shining examples of a locally grown startup that has succeeded on the public market. As Grubhub's stock continues to climb, it has grown to more than a $10 billion business, with a $12 billion market cap as of this writing. Its growth comes on the heels of a string of recent acquisitions. It acquired mobile payment platform LevelUp for $390 million in July, and prior to that spent $288 million to acquire Yelp’s Eat24 business and acquired food delivery service Foodler in June last year for $51 million.
ParkWhiz: ParkWhiz, one of Chicago's fast-growing parking startups, raised $20 million in a Series D round in September as it looks to expand into new markets. It also brought on new CEO Yona Shtern in March, who was previously the CEO of Beyond the Rack.
SpotHero: Chicago parking startup SpotHero has had a busy 2018. It outfitted 500 Chicago parking facilities with new driverless car-enabled technology, announced a partnership with Waze to install bluetooth beacons on Lower Wacker Drive to improve cellphone signals, and is in talks with electric scooter companies to potentially use SpotHero garages as places to park e-scooters when not in use. And it raised $10 million in new funding as it prepares for another large round in 2019.
Steven Galanis, co-founder and CEO, Cameo: Cameo, which lets users request and pay for video shout-out messages from celebrities, has been seeing explosive growth over the last 17 months. They’ve grown from four employees to 22, and have delivered tens of thousands of personalized video messages.
Tastytrade: Tastytrade is a financial media company that offers free, accessible content about trading and finance for active investors. The company raised $20 million in a Series C funding round this year, bringing its total amount raised to date at around $60 million. The news follows the launch of tastyworks in January 2017. The platform, which serves as a high-speed technology brokerage firm, allows investors to go from content to trading seamlessly.
Tovala: Smart oven maker Tovala had a big end to 2017, raising more than $9 million in December from Origin Ventures, the Pritzker Group and others. It kept the momentum going in 2018 with backing from Tyson Foods, which launched a $150 million fund in 2016 to back innovative food tech companies.
Healthcare
AIM Clinics: Autism in Motion Clinics, a startup that aims to provide autism therapy to children in rural communities throughout the U.S., won first place and $45,000 at the University of Chicago’s Social New Venture Challenge this year. The startup aims to set up and operate autism clinics in markets that have substantial and underserved populations of children with autism.
AMOpportunities: The startup, which connects international medical students to clinical rotations in United States hospitals, tripled its headcount and established partnerships with healthcare providers, such as Saint Anthony Hospital on the Southwest Side.
Regroup: The startup, which provides mental health services via videoconferencing, raised $5.5 million in June, bringing its total funding to nearly $14 million.
Star Cunningham, founder of 4D Healthware: 4D Healthware's software platform works with wearable devices to help patients and doctors monitor health conditions when the patient isn’t face-to-face with their clinician. Earlier this year Cunningham was featured in a powerful Vanity Fair photoshoot that featured all 26 women tech founders of color who have raised $1 million or more in outside capital. 4D has raised $2.2 million to date.
Tempus: Tempus, a startup fighting cancer with genomic-sequencing technology, has been one of Chicago's fastest-growing startups since launching just two years ago. The company, founded by Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, raised $110 million this year at a $2 billion valuation. It has raised $320 million to date.
Lifestyle
BrewBike: Chicago startup BrewBike operates a mobile cold brew coffee cart that aims to caffeinate students on college campuses. Founded by students at Northwestern and the University of Chicago, the company cleaned up at local university pitch competitions this year, winning $45,000 at Chicago's New Venture Challenge and $20,000 at Northwestern's VentureCat.
Home Chef: Chicago meal kit delivery startup Home Chef was acquired by Kroger this year in a deal worth up to $700 million. Home Chef did $250 million in revenue last year, a 150 percent year-over-year increase.
Mac and Mia: In April, Chicago startup Mac and Mia raised $5 million in Series A funding round for its service that helps parents find stylish clothes for their kids. Similar to Trunk Club or Stitch Fix, Mac & Mia connects parents with stylists who choose pieces from Mac & Mia’s inventory that best suit their child’s needs. Parents receive a box in the mail with pieces of clothing, and they can keep what they want and send back what they don’t like.
Poppilu: Chicago-based Poppilu is an antioxidant lemonade with no preservatives, no artificial flavors, and less sugar than other top lemonade brands. Poppilu is sold in Jewel Osco and other regional grocery chains, and this year it was accepted into Kraft Heinz's startup incubator, where it received $50,000.
PourMyBeer: Chicago startup PourMyBeer makes a self-serve beverage system that allows bars to offer "bartender-less" taprooms. The company's software and hardware powers the self-serve taps at Tapster's Wicker Park and Lincoln Park locations, as well as Navigator Taproom in Logan Square. More than 200 bars across the world use PourMyBeer's technology.
Prommus: Founded earlier this year, Prommus makes the first and only 100 percent clean label, gluten-free and high-protein hummus. It is enhanced with whey protein isolate through a proprietary processing method that the startup came up with. Earlier this month, Prommus was a finalist at the WeWork Creator Awards.
Reverb LP: Since launching to the public in January 2018, Reverb LP already has more than two million records, cassettes and CDs for sale, and thousands of sellers—from record store owners to individual collectors—using the site to earn additional income. The company also announced the launch of the Reverb LP mobile app, which enables record lovers to search through millions of records or post records for sale in just three steps—right from their mobile phone.
Civic/Education
Arelia Jones, co-founder and director of technology and education, CoderSpace: CoderSpace is a youth tech mentoring and education program on Chicago's south side. Jones has helped revamp the program each summer to better meet students’ needs all while balancing a full-time job as a software engineer at Chicago tech company Sprout Social.
CityBase: CityBase is a Chicago startup that provides online payment technology and other digital services to governments. This year it was acquired by Austin-based GTY Technology Holdings for $160 million. CityBase makes a software platform for government agencies that allows residents to search and pay for things like parking violations, property taxes and more online.
Codeverse: Codeverse is a coding studio for children whose mission is to teach one billion kids how to code. In August, it raised more than $10 million and announced plans to open two new studios by the end of this year.
Nancy Amato, University of Illinois: Amato is the incoming head of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois—the No. 5 CS department in the country. She will be the first woman to lead the department when she starts in January.
Otus: The Chicago-based EdTech startup gives teachers an all-in-one platform that puts education-based tech tools in one place so they can give more attention to their students. The Otus team has grown in the past year by roughly 50 percent, now employing more than 30 people, and works with 26 school districts in Illinois.
Rich Alapack, founder, We All Live Here: The organization works to teach the importance of inclusivity and equality by developing school programs that leverage art, community and technology. They’ve done work in 89 Chicago schools across all 77 of the city’s neighborhoods.
Supporters
Blue1647: Chicago tech hub Blue1647, which focuses on underserved communities, has trained thousands of youth in entrepreneurship and helped launch new businesses throughout Chicago. Last year it received a $500,000 grant from Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org, and this year opened a brand new e-sports center in its Pilsen space.
Catapult: The Chicago incubator and co-working space has helped mentor some of Chicago’s most well-known startups, including Shiftgig, Opternative, Bucketfeet, Rippleshot and Jiobit. Catapult boasts that 90 percent of the startups that’ve come through its doors have been acquired or are still active today.
Hyde Park Angels: The Chicago-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups has become the most active investor in the Midwest. In 2018, Hyde Park Angels has already invested more capital in startups than it has in any year historically.
Julia Kanouse, CEO, Illinois Technology Association: In 2017, Kanouse took over as CEO of the ITA, an organization that helps local startups scale and grow. In her new role, she has focused on women in tech, introducing the Women Influence Chicago initiative to cultivate women leaders among tech companies.
Rumi Morales, partner, Outlier Ventures: Rumi Morales, a well-known figure in Chicago’s fintech and startup scene, has joined Outlier Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm focused on blockchain technology. She joins the firm as a partner, a move that allows Outlier to have a stronger presence in North America. Morales will remain in Chicago and will be tasked with sourcing deals and working with Outlier’s portfolio companies.
Marketing/Advertising
Active Campaign: Founded in 2003, ActiveCampaign provides customers with a marketing platform that lets them send and design email newsletters, automate marketing channels and get more sales leads. Though they were founded over a decade ago, the startup says it’s seen explosive growth in the last two years, doubling its staff in just the last year.
Brian Walker, founder of AE Marketing Group: Since founding AE Marketing group in 2011, Brian Walker has led the company through rapid growth, landing on the INC. 5000 list for the past three years. This year AE Marketing Group's Brand Lab Series was recognized by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts as a two-time Communicator Award Winner for Excellence in Podcasting, winning both the Business and Technology categories.
Corbett Drummey, founder of Popular Pays: In August, Chicago startup Popular Pays raised $5.5 million for its social media marketing platform. Popular Pays helps brands connect with social media influencers on digital ad campaigns, allowing companies to easily execute campaigns with popular social media stars on Pinterest, Instagram and other sites, while also helping content creators earn money.
Quicksilver Studios: Since being acquired by L Street Collaborative last year, Chicago-based Quicksilver Studios has grown quickly in 2018. It has added four new Fortune 500 clients this year, and it has expanded the scope of its services to include 360 video, AR/VR, drone photography and living murals.
Walker Sands: Chicago PR firm Walker Sands was recently named to the INC. 5000 for the sixth straight year, and was named the No. 1 agency to work for in America (with between 71 and 120 employees) by the Holmes Report, a PR industry publication. This year it grew to over 100 employees and opened a new office in Seattle.
Katherine Davis contributed to this report.
