HPA believes world-class organizations are built by giving people the resources and opportunities to be successful. Whether it’s our members, our partners, or our portfolio companies, HPA is committed to helping build a stronger Midwest entrepreneurial ecosystem by supporting people. In that same vein, we’re excited to announce the promotion of our two Associates, Bess…
Get to know Ann Ann Deters is CEO & Founder of Vantage Technology, which has provided cataract services to hospitals and surgery centers throughout the United States for the past 28 years. In addition, she has started several healthcare ventures, such as surgery centers, medical billing services, and software technology. Currently, she sits on four…
In the future, when we analyze moments in time when true innovation transformed an industry, we’ll remember an event that happened just a couple of weeks ago: Livongo’sIPO. By the end of its trading debut — which left the company valued at $3.4 billion — Livongo proved two things: that it’s possible to empower people to live healthier…
This is the final article in a three-part series on the benefits of giving all startup employees equity. See the first piece here and the second one here. A year after I moved to Chicago, I attended a women’s networking event, where an employee of a recently-acquired startup entered the room. Folks were excited to see her, congratulating…
The unicorns in Michigan demonstrate a fertile startup ecosystem with unlimited opportunities. A couple weeks ago, StockX became the state’s newest in a quickly-growing cohort of unicorns, which includes two other startups that also earned the elite status this year. In February, OneStream Software announced that it had not only become a unicorn but that it is profitable as well, an achievement…
Get to know John John Higginson is the CTO at Enova, a large publicly-traded Chicago FinTech company that’s extended over $20B in credit to customers worldwide. At Enova, John is responsible for driving the company’s technology strategy to leverage advanced digital experiences and data science to deliver on its mission to help hard-working people access…
When the first startup I worked for was acquired in 2010, my equity—which I did not have full appreciation of up until that point—cashed out on the lower end of the four-figure range. That is not the level of value that we tend to get excited about when we talk about startup equity, but it…
This is the first article in a three-part series on the benefits of giving all startup employees equity. The next article will explore the opportunity Chicago has to leverage equity to create more founders and people capable of taking risks on very early-stage companies. Last month, Chicago Inno published an article on why some startups choose to bootstrap rather…
Getting to know Anjoo Anjoo Rai-Marchant served as the COO at HighGround, which was acquired last year by YouEarnedIt. With her combination of business and technical acumen, she currently advises companies and entrepreneurs in addition to serving as an independent board member of SciArt Software, a company focused on generative design. With over 20 years…
While startup and venture performance in the Bay Area is a valuable datapoint that provides meaningful insights into our industry, I recommend a different strategy for evaluating our respective ecosystems’ health. To get an actionable — not to mention less daunting — perspective of our performance, we must look beyond the Bay and across all…