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It is not always obvious just how much work goes into putting on a three month program like TechStars Chicago. We started ramping up in January getting ready for applications to open February 1st and will finally slow down a bit around Thanksgiving. A program like this could never come…
Q. What do First Round Capital, Battery Ventures, SV Angel, Founder Collective, and countless other VC firms have in common? A. They have all invested in alums of Excelerate Labs in its three short years of existence and none of these firms even has a presence in Chicago. Excelerate Labs…
Chicago’s SpotHero Raises 2.5mm to Bring Sanity to Urban Parking The influx of West Coast VC money to Chicago continued today with the announcement that SpotHero, a recent graduate of top incubator Excelerate Labs, has raised USD2.5 million from an array of investment firms across the country. The round was…
Food Genius entered the crowded market of dish recommendation apps last year, using big data to revolutionize the way people discover restaurants and dishes. At the time, the startup’s focus was on getting (scraping) as much menu-level data as possible, which they parsed by ingredients, preparation methods, spices and other aspects of a…
Food Genius, a Chicago startup that analyzes restaurant menu data to predict food-industry trends, will announce this week it has raised $1.2 million in venture capital. The lead investors are Hyde Park Venture Partners and Hyde Park Angels; others include New World Ventures, the I2A Fund, Amicus Capital and product-development…
The 10 companies participating in Chicago tech accelerator Excelerate Labs got to make their formal pitches to investors last week. But that didn’t stop one of the participating companies, parking-reservations startup SpotHero, from securing an initial round of funding beforehand from Silicon Valley venture-capital firm 500 Startups. SpotHero met with…
Chicago’s local incubator, Excelerate Labs, held its demo day yesterday, with the program’s ten startups set to graduate. Excelerate, which offers startups $50,000 in convertible debt from New World Ventures (similar to The Start Fund model), counts Lightbank, New World, DFJ Mercury, OCA Ventures, Draper Associates, Sam Yagan and Troy Henikoff as limited partners.…
Meet the Newest Crop of Chicago Start-ups: It’s Demo Day at Chicago-based Excelerate Labs. Here’s a sneak peak at the companies on deck to pitch at the city’s iconic House of Blues. Another incubator, another high-stakes Demo Day. This time it’s Chicago-based Excelerate Labs, the incubator run by entrepreneurs Sam…
Graduation day for a tech startup means trading pomp and circumstance for T-shirts and a polished, high-energy slideshow presentation aimed at persuading investors to get out their checkbooks. Wednesday marked such an occasion for 10 startups that have spent the summer at Chicago-based Excelerate Labs, an annual boot camp program…
Chicago’s Excelerate Labs held its annual demo day on Wednesday, trotting out the 10 fledgling companies that underwent its intensive accelerator program this summer. At the end of that program come $50,000 grants investments from Chicago’s New World Ventures as well as the chance to pitch their companies to 200…