Image credit: American Inno
Last night, the Chicago tech community gathered together at Moonlight Studios to celebrate Chicago Inno's 2019 50 on Fire, a list of people and companies that are working to move Chicago tech forward.
Now in its fifth year, 50 on Fire is an annual celebration of startups, enterprises and individuals that have had a banner year—whether that’s fast growth, new product launches, big hires or innovative approaches to solving problems. You can see the full list of winners here.
At the event, we also unveiled this year's Inno Blazer winners, which were the top people/companies from each of our 50 on Fire categories as decided by a group of judges. The Blazer winners all received Inno’s iconic red blazer at the event.
This year's Inno Blazers were:
- Shaniqua Davis, CEO of Noirefy (B2B): In 2016, Davis founded Noirefy, a platform that connects minority candidates and companies to drive diversity and inclusion. Specializing in helping African Americans, Latinx, Native Americans and women find work in tech and other industries, the startup has more than 20,000 candidates on its platform.
- Vivid Seats (B2C): Founded in 2001, Vivid Seats is the largest independent ticket marketplace in North America. This year it announced partnerships with Rolling Stone, Capital One, the LA Clippers, Groupon and others, and is on track to hire around 100 new employees in 2019, many of which are engineers. In late 2018 the company hired Grubhub vet Stan Chia as its CEO.
- The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (Civic/Education): The University of Chicago’s Polsky Center operates one of the most high-profile student startup accelerators in the country: The New Venture Challenge. In addition to its traditional student accelerator tracks, the program recently launched the Alumni New Venture Challenge, which allows any university alum in the world to participate in the accelerator. The NVC has successfully launched 330 companies still in operation today, which have gone on to raise more than $1 billion in funding and achieve more than $7.5 billion in exit value. Additionally, the Polsky Center supports entrepreneurs on Chicago’s South Side through the Polsky Small Business Growth Program, which aims to to support and advise small business owners on the South and West sides of Chicago.
- M1 Finance (Fintech): Chicago investing platform M1 Finance has grown quickly since it decided to drop fees from its app last year, allowing users to invest for free. The startup aims to make it easier for people to invest by letting users build a custom portfolio of stocks and funds, or choose from dozens of expert portfolios. Founded in 2015, the startup has raised $9 million in venture funding to date.
- Cleveland Avenue (Food & Beverage): Food startup accelerator Cleveland Avenue, founded by former McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson, was an early investor in Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat, which went public in May. On the day of its initial public offering, Beyond Meat was valued at $3.8 billion. Cleveland Avenue has also invested in Chicago-based food companies Farmer’s Fridge and FoodBoss.
- Tempus (Healthcare): The cancer-fighting startup, founded by Eric Lefkofsky, raised $200 million in May in a Series F round that values the Chicago startup at $3.1 billion. The fundraise came less than a year after Tempus raised $110 million at a $2 billion valuation. Tempus has now raised a total of $520 million since it launched in 2015.
- Cameo (Lifestyle): The buzzy consumer startup that allows users to request personalized video messages from celebrities, raised $50 million in a Series B round earlier this year. Now, the company is valued at around $300 million, according to Axios. In total, Cameo has raised more than $65 million since it launched just two years ago.
- Jeremie Bacon, Chairman of the Illinois Technology Association (Supporters): Though Bacon works to support Chicago’s tech ecosystem at the ITA, he’s also helping launch The Forge, an outdoor adventure park in suburban Lemont. The project began in 2015 and recently broke ground in August, with plans to open in the summer of 2020. The Forge will be the first park of its kind in the country, combining aerial courses, climbing, ziplines, mountain biking, running trails, a children’s zone and many other outdoor attractions.
Check out the video announcing all 50 of last night’s winners below.
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