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Meet the 18 50 on Fire Finalists in the Supporters Category

December 7, 2016 By Alida Miranda-Wolff

This year, we added a new category to our annual 50 on Fire awards event – Supporters.

Supporters are anyone, individuals or organizations, that are committed to strengthening and supporting the ecosystem, whether it’s through capital, community, real-estate, mentorship, education, and more. That’s why this is our most eclectic and varied list – it has venture capitalists and venture firms, accelerators and co-working spaces, podcast hosts and PR professionals, and more.

An ecosystem cannot grow or thrive on ideas and founders alone – it needs those that are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and executives scale. Fortunately, in Chicago, we have a number of people and businesses that exist to fuel the innovation economy – take a look at the 18 finalists in our Supporters category below and learn why each and everyone is on fire. (The below bullets are culled from the nominees’ submissions, as well as internal reporting and research).

Also, 50 on Fire, where we’ll be unveiling the final 50, is Thursday, 12/8 from 7-10PM at Lacuna Artist Lofts. Here’s everything you need to know about the event; we hope to see you there.

2112

  • 2112, Chicago’s music and arts incubator, has grown from 0 to more than 75 member companies in its first year of operation.
  • The overall Fort Knox/2112 ecosystem now employs 22 people and is home to nearly 1,500 creative professionals.

Ali Afridi & Eric Ong, Venture Capitalists, Lightbank

  • Lightbank’s newest, youngest VCs, Afridi and Ong, along with sourcing deals for one of the city’s biggest firms, also contribute terrific Chicago tech/startup guides to Medium and LinkedIn.

Alida Miranda-WolffHyde Park Angels

  • Miranda-Wolff has helped generate 311 press articles for HPA portfolio companies, and reached a whopping 26,094 entrepreneurs this year already through in-person, email marketing, and content distribution initiatives.
  • She also makes up a team of 1 on the HPA communications team, in addition to managing our investor network of 100 individuals, and our 25+ formal partners.

Cayla Chambers, Partner, InvestHER Ventures

  • Lead InvestHER, a new venture capital firm focused on funding women-led ventures (or ventures with a female executive with equity interest).
  • Committed to transforming Chicago into the female founder hub of the U.S.

Colin Keeley, Founder & Host of Tech In Chicago Podcast 

  • In its first year, Keeley has hosted and produced over 30 episodes of the Tech in Chicago podcast, a weekly podcast showcasing local entrepreneurs and startups.

elmspring

  • elmspring, the first real estate focused seed stage accelerator in the world, has now had over 20 companies pass through its program and platform.
  • Helped launch 11 startups this Fall.

FinTEx

  • FinTEx, an organization focused on growing Chicago’s fintech ecosystem, was selected by Innovate Finance to represent the city and the broader midwest in its Global Fintech Hubs program, a collection of leading FinTech communities around the world.
  • Increased membership by 120% over the last year.

Glenn Eden, executive vice president, Weber Shandwick

  • Eden leads the technology practice lead for the Chicago office of Weber Shandwick, working with a handful of Chicago brands that includes Gogo and Motorola.
  • Led an all-Chicago team on the strategy which generated 70+ positive stories with national, local and trade media outlets about Chicago’s first-in-the-world movement to install modular sensors as part of the Array of Things project.

Kristi Dula, Network Relationship Manager, Pritzker Group Venture Capital

  • A key connector in the Chicago tech community, Dula facilitates relationships for Pritzker Group’s family of portfolio companies.

Life Creative

  • Opened this year, Life Creative boasts 70,000 square feet encompassing multiple creative meeting rooms, a maker-factory, an enhanced experience center, event production facilities, multifaceted training rooms, and a co- working community.
  • Within the first 3 months of operation Life Creative welcomed over 1,000 visitors.

Michael Sachaj, Principal, Hyde Park Angels 

  • As Principal at Hyde Park Angels, Sachaj has sourced 837 deals in less than 9 months, matched them with HPA’s member-experts in addition to evaluating them himself, and shepherded the best of the best into their portfolio, sometimes in record time.
  • Through Sachaj’s fundraising efforts, hundreds of jobs have been created at startups across Chicago.

Nick Moran, Angel Investor, GP at New Stack Ventures, and host of The Full Ratchet Podcast 

  • An active investor in the Chicago area – Moran leads an AngelList Syndicate with over 99 backers – he also hosts the Full Ratchet Podcast.
  • Moran’s podcast have over 100 episodes with over 79 5-star reviews.

Nicole Yeary, Founder & President, Ms.Tech

  • Ms.Tech, a social impact organization focused on fostering opportunities for women in tech, has created the curriculum for the WiSTEM program that has served 37 companies, over 45 entrepreneurs, and has collectively boosted the Chicago economy with 169 new full and part time jobs, while raising more than $7 million in funding, and generating more than $835,000 in gross revenues.
  • Yeary is exclusively focused on the Chicago market, and as such, Ms.Tech has grown by 43% over the last 12 months into a vibrant, engaged base of 2822 active members.

OCA Ventures

  • OCA Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm that supports passionate entrepreneurs who are obsessed with building great companies.
  • The past two years, OCA has had $2 billion in successful exits and have just closed on a $70 million funding round.

Origin Ventures 

  • A Chicago-based venture capital firm currently investing out of its $48M third fund.
  • 100% of its investments in 2016 have been towards Chicago companies, including 2 additional investments in participants of the New Venture Challenge at Chicago Booth – Riviter and TransparentC.

TechNexus

  • A Chicago tech pillar, TechNexus is a still-expanding venture collaborative and co-working space.

Vested World 

  • Operates like a traditional venture capital fund, but is 100% focused on emerging markets.
  • Target early stage companies with potential to create meaningful jobs, provide fair wages and fuel widespread economic progress throughout their communities and regions.

Victor Gutwein, Managing Director of M25 Group

  • In one year since launching M25 Group, Victor has raised $11M in committed capital over two funds and invested in over 25 Midwest- based seed-stage startups (the majority in Chicago).
  • He’s the youngest ever member of Hyde Park Angels at 23 and leads their Consumer Products and Services group.

Twitter @WhereBeWill

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