Venture funding continues to flow into Chicago, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than the record amount of VC dollars the city raised in 2021.
Startups in the Chicago metro area raised $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2022, according to data released today by Pitchbook. That was down 26% from Q4 of 2021 and 30% below the same quarter last year.
But Q1 continued Chicago's string of quarters where local tech companies raised at least $1 billion, which is still a relatively new occurrence. Chicago now has six straight quarters of raising at least 10 figures in venture funding. Since 2014, the only other time the city raised that much was Q1 of 2019, according to Pitchbook.
In 2020, Chicago startups raised a total of $2.8 billion, and $2.2 billion in 2019.
Chicago's $1.4 billion raised was good for 8th most in the U.S. last quarter, pacing behind the Bay Area ($28 billion), New York ($10 billion), Los Angeles ($6 billion), Boston ($5 billion), Washington, D.C. ($2 billion), Seattle ($1.6 billion) and Austin ($1.5 billion).
Chicago was ahead of cities like Philadelphia ($1.3 billion), Miami ($1.2 billion), Denver ($1 billion) and Atlanta ($900 million).
A total of 90 firms in Chicago raised funding last quarter, accounting for 2.4% of the total number of U.S. deals. Nationally, $70.7 billion was invested across 3,723 deals in the first quarter of 2022. That was down 35% from $95.4 billion that was raised in Q4 2021, but still good enough to clock in as the fifth-highest quarter on record, according to Pitchbook.
Large Chicago VC deals last quarter include Kin Insurance's $82 million round, Loadsmart's $200 million, Zero Hash's $105 million, Foxtrot's $100 million and Project44's $240 million.
