Chicago Capital

Jordan is the CEO and Founder of Rally, a headless checkout for modern brands. The company offers ecommerce merchants a better converting, more profitable, one-click checkout.

Rally is on a mission to bring power back to merchants and app developers by equipping them with a headless and fully optimized one-click checkout solution. Rally is central to the modern headless ecommerce ecosystem bridging front- and back-end platforms, and plays a critical role in creating a seamless checkout experience for customers. Rally’s team of industry leaders pioneered the post-purchase offer technology for DTC brands, driving over $200m in post-purchase revenue and processed $3B in sales. Rally appreciates a decentralized ethos and is merchant and revenue-focused, always.

Jordan's podcast, Boostrapped Web, can be found here!

https://bootstrappedweb.com/

Tom Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zenblen. Zenblen is developing a tech-enabled smoothie bar that blends healthy, nutritionist-curated smoothies right in front of the consumer. They partner with high-frequented locations, such as gyms and office buildings, in our mission to make healthy-eating more convenient in everyone's daily routines

Declan Zidar and I sit down to discuss the past, present, and future of Chicago Capital. Tune in for a deep-dive on:

• Our professional backgrounds
• Starting a Podcast
• The catalyst for Chicago Capital
• Views on Chicago Startup Ecosystem
• Tips for breaking into VC (Pre-MBA and Post-MBA)
• General early-career advice
• Books and Resources we love

Special thanks, again, to Kevin Daly for all of this work on the show. Also thank you to everyone who has tuned in and agreed to hop on the show. Cannot wait for what's next.

Take it easy.

Thru Shivakumar is the CEO & Co-Founder of cohesion, a smart building SaaS platform at the intersection of green, healthy, and operationally efficient buildings for CRE.

With its building experience app, cohesion provides a secure, converged IoT-enabled software solution that unites core building workflows, optimizes portfolio management, and generates actionable insights to increase profitability and create better tenant experiences.

The company combines a wide range of capabilities necessary to support the Intelligent Building Platform that include the Internet of Things, Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud and Mobile technologies and Machine Learning. Its solution offers a breadth of features for various user roles, comprising the owner, operator, tenant manager, and tenant in a single platform.

cohesion's deep building and technology expertise stem from its birth heritage at a global engineering and design firm, combining strategic product elements, including architecture, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, cutting-edge information technology and software engineering capabilities

This episode is brought to you by World Business Chicago. As the City of Chicago’s economic development organization, World Business Chicago drives inclusive growth and opportunity for our local tech, innovation, and startup ecosystem. They recently announced the 2022 Chicago Venture Summit Future-of-Food, their new flagship conference to highlight why Chicago leads as a the global capital for food innovation. Follow World Business Chicago on LinkedIn and Twitter for event details and other related news about our city’s economic progress.

Jithendra Palasagaram is the CEO and Founder of Part Analytics, a Venture-backed startup focused on transforming direct material procurement by digitizing manual processes and harmonizing data from multiple disparate sources. Its AI-powered supply management solution with a modern and intuitive UI enables smarter data-driven decision making to optimize cost and uncover hidden supply risk.

Distributed Ventures invests in companies that are transforming the future of risk across Insurtech, Fintech and Healthtech & Benefits. Their mission is to find, fund and work successfully with visionary entrepreneurs. They target companies seeking Seed to Series B investments that can benefit from NFP and other LP's distribution, human capital, and unique assets to accelerate their growth. Distributed Ventures has offices in both Chicago and New York.

We Discussed:

• Transitioning from Consulting and Investment Banking to Venture Capital
• Startup Experience vs. Investing 
• Distributed Ventures and their Insurtech, Fintech, and Health Tech focus

Actuate's AI software turned existing security cameras that can automatically identify threats and occupant behavior patterns to support security and facilities management teams. 

Our core capabilities include: gun detection, intruder detection, crowd / loitering detection, social distancing detection, and mask detection.

Backed by Tribeca Venture Partners, Scribble Ventures, Bling Capital, Upside Partnership, Tensility Venture Partners, and the University of Chicago.

TrueToForm is a body scanning and data management platform that helps businesses create and sell clothing that fits.

Their mobile application generates highly accurate avatars for apparel design and fitting. They use proprietary algorithms and computer vision to capture body shape and size in 3D, along with full body measurement extraction. Anywhere, any time. 

They help businesses get access to the body data they need to improve fit, expand reach, and reduce waste across the product creation lifecycle. 

Heyday is the first interactive strength home gym for the 60+ to train for real life. Strength is the most important workout for better aging. Heyday is revolutionizing aging experience by making strength training safe, effective and fun. With low impact workouts, workout parties, encouraging trainers and personal resistance guidance, Heyday redefines strength training to be more inclusive and social, without compromising intensity.

The company is founded in 2021 and is headquartered in San Francisco.

Garmentier is the first retail technology platform to transform the 1:1 shopping experience into scalable selling technology. They are an enterprise software company with marketplace capabilities, giving superpowers to stylists, salespeople and retailers alike. 

Garmentier enables a new level of personalization and humanization in omni-channel customer experiences. They remove growth roadblocks, open exciting new sales channels, and help our customers grow their businesses by delivering an unparalleled shopping experience: all in 1 simplified platform.

They're fundraising - and hiring! Contact them: [email protected]