Chicago Capital

Cheryl Kemp is the founder & CEO of Indifit, the fitness entrepreneur's business management tool. Hundreds of IndiFit partners already benefit from technologies designed specifically for their business needs. IndiFit provides easy-to-use booking and business management resources to fitness and wellness instructors, allowing them to focus on the things that matter - cultivating and connecting with their audience.

You can find IndiFit at their website & Linkedin and Cheryl Kemp on Linkedin and her writing on her website.

Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired.Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.

Ashley Harman is the Senior Principal at Bluestein Ventures, a family office Venture Capital firm that focuses on investing in high-growth food and retail ventures. Prior to Bluestein, Ashley scaled a business across the country and spent time as an economic analyst at Nira during the height of the financial crisis.

In this episode, we covered:

• The Parallels Between Economics & Venture
• The Nature of Consumer Investing
• Go-To-Market Strategies
• The Velocity of Consumer Brands
• Bluestein’s Recent Chicago Investments

And much more...

Ashley is actively involved in the Chicago community, where she serves on a number of boards and as a mentor at the Hatchery. She received her MBA from Harvard and attended Williams College for her undergraduate degree. She performs a variety of mission-critical tasks for Bluestein, including the screening and due diligence on new investment opportunities. She also assists the firm’s portfolio companies with their strategy formulation and execution.

You can find Ashley on her Linkedin and Bluestein Ventures on their website and Linkedin.

Chicago Restaurant Recommendations: 

• Giant Restaurant
• Lula Cafe
• Daisies.

Podcast Recommendations: 

• Acquired Podcast
• Invest Like the Best
• Taste Radio
• Revisionist History
• Long-Form Podcast.

Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early-stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired. Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group

Ruuster has brought together the info, tools, and people you need to plan for and execute your home purchase like a pro, even if it’s your first time.

Ruuster is a centralized app for the home buying process. As a home buyer, you can learn about each stage of the process, communicate with your agent via text and video, search properties, access property insights not available on Zillow, schedule tours, see a custom task list, share and sign documents, and acquire all of the vendors you need in one place, all on your phone.

With Ruuster, agents can qualify their leads, centralize their communication (text, images, videos, and documents) with all of their clients, send property recommendations, share and sign documents, maintain their schedule, and have one view of their pipeline all in their hands.

It's amazing that something like this doesn't exist, and it's also amazing that Ruuster is almost there with an initial version and first-to-market solution.

So far in its 10 months of launch, Ruuster has had thousands of users of the consumer platform. It has also partnered with world-class companies like Realtor.com, Better.com, New American Funding, and a number of top insurance companies.

Ruuster has opened up a distribution channel through agents, giving them the ability to integrate Ruuster into their current systems and provide their clients a branded homebuying app. And Ruuster developed an elegant suite of tools to help them prioritize their lead outreach and manage their pipelines. 

Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired.Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.

In this episode, we covered:

• The Thesis Behind Listen Ventures
• How Jeff Assess Early-Stage Brands
• Investing in Calm, Factor_, and Catch Co.
• "Glass Box Brands"
• Consumer Investing in 2021
• Chicago's place in Consumer Landscape

And much more.... Please Enjoy!

Prior to founding Listen, Jeff spent 10 years in the advertising industry at Leo Burnett where he helped large brands innovate and craft their brand story.

Since founding Listen, Jeff has invested in over 20 startups. He looks to provide branding and business strategy for consumer-focused early-stage companies. Jeff invested in one of the most successful consumer tech companies in the past ten years in Calm, and he has an impressive roster of Chicago-based investments including Factor, and Catch Co.

You can find Listen Ventures on their website and Linkedin and Jeff on the podcast- “Overheard: Where Venture Meets Culture” on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

Chicago Restaurant Recommendations: Momotaro, Cruz Blanca, and Gene & Jude’s. 

Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired.Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.

Jackie DiMonte is a Partner at Chicago Ventures, an early-stage Venture Capital firm based in Chicago. She began her career at Accenture as a consultant. She then worked for an IoT startup named Silver Spring Networks while receiving her MBA at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Jackie entered Venture Capital at Hyde Park Venture Partners prior to becoming a Partner at Chicago Ventures.

In this episode, we cover:

• The maturation of Venture Capital in Chicago 
• A recap of seed investing in 2020
• Prognosis for seed investing in 2021 
• The impending Series A crunch
• NFT's

You can find Jackie on LinkedIn & on Twitter and Chicago Ventures at their website.

Resources discussed:

• Jackie’s newsletter Day by Jay, 
• Seeding the Exception article 
• Her NFT  - Floating Houses.

Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired.Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.

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Lance Dietz is a Principal at KB Partners, a Chicago based investment firm that focuses on early stage venture capital investments in the Sports Technology Industry. Prior to KB, Lance attended West Point for his undergrad where he played Division one basketball. After graduating, Lance served in the US Army as an engineer officer, was deployed in Afghanistan, and thereafter received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Once Lance graduated from Booth, he began in investment banking at JP Morgan. He spent time in the M&A group. In 2018, Lance joined KB Partners where he now leads due diligence and sourcing for early stage startups in the Sports Tech space.

In this episode, we covered

• Lessons Lance took from his time in the military
• The nuances of Sports Tech investing
• The thesis behind KB Partners
• The maturity and state of the Sports Tech industry
• Chicago's place in the Sports Tech scene

Please Enjoy!

You can connect with Lance via Linkedin or Twitter and KB Partners on Twitter, Linkedin, and their website.

Organizations & Reading recommendations from Lance: 

• Sports Innovation Lab 
• Front Office Sports Newsletter, 
• Fitt Insider’s Newsletter & Podcast.

Colin Keeley is the co-founder and operator of a number of companies, including Avocado, Formulated, and now Blinksale. After college, Colin worked as a Product Manager & Marketing Manager at Luma.Tv and then ran Geneva Denim for a stretch before heading to business school at the University of Chicago. During business school, Colin launched Bevy, a sharing economy startup that allowed customers to rent anything. He also launched The Tech In Chicago Podcast, the first Chicago-focused early-stage podcast.

Matt caught up with Colin Keeley to discuss his latest entrepreneurial endeavors, Avocado and Formulated. They also discussed the process of starting a podcast, his plans for scaling his Micro-PE model, and the flywheel effect of big exits in Chicago.

Key Takeaways

• Micro-PE has a boringness discount. All these startups that grow super fast, they're super sexy. But, you can actually buy product-market fit and recurring revenue for a pretty low multiple, if it isn't one of these sexy startups in a sexy space. There is an opportunity around the $100-200K MRR range, where a single developer has built something that has real product-market fit, hundreds of customers, but they don't really have that skill-set to take it to the next level. They don't have the skillset to put the processes in place or any real best practices for sales and marketing. 
• Audio courses are designed for a clear return on investment. They take you from A to Z in learning. You could get the same knowledge from podcasts, but you spend a lot more time doing that. People sell audio courses for that ROI and to get consumers from A to Z. Podcasts are driven by advertisements. Joe Rogan is incentivized to have a three-hour podcast so he can fit in an hour of ads.
• Chicago needs bigger exits. It’s a flywheel - we need more people that have good outcomes that come back and become angel investors. It’s progressing. We took a few steps back during COVID, but Chicago has a lot going for it.

Please Enjoy!

Colin’s Social, Podcasts, and Companies:

• Linkedin 
• Twitter
• Tech in Chicago 
• Creator Stories, 
• Avocado 
• Formulated
• Blinksale 

Podcast recommendations from Colin:

• My First Million 
• Let’s Buy a Business.

Chicago Food Recommendations: 

• The Weiners Circle, 
• Athenian Room 
• Big Star.

 Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired. Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.

Cristin Pacifico is a Manager at TechNexus Venture Collaborative, a Venture Collaborative that combines businesses, corporate joint-ventures, private equity funds, and a startup investment portfolio. Given the fund structure at TechNexus, Cristin spends a large amount of her time strategically thinking about how startups and large corporations can work together and find synergies. She focuses on Direct-to-consumer and e-commerce business, marine and outdoor recreation, and diversity, inclusion, & impact investing. 

Prior to TechNexus, Cristin worked in a variety of operating and investing roles. She was an early employee at Home Chef, where she worked on the finance team and was able to help steer the company through its merger with Kroger. Before her time at Home Chef, she started out as an investment banker at Robert W. Baird. She worked primarily on the sell-side M&A team with industrial companies, similar to some of the corporate partners that she now works with today at TechNexus.

Cristin graduated from Notre Dame and during her time there, she co-founded a microlending-non profit called JIFFI, which she still serves on the board of today. 

Cristin spoke with Matt about the Chicago investing ecosystem, her experience at HomeChef, the exciting verticals she’s seeing in the outdoor & recreation industry, and other 2021 trends. 

Please Enjoy!

You can find Cristin on LinkedIn & on Twitter and TechNexus Venture Collaborative on their website.

Cristin’s article on

•  Why Chicago Venture has been so Successful 
• How Social Effects from the COVID-19 Pandemic Shape the Future of Outdoor Recreation

Reading Recommendations:

• Understandably
• Not Boring by Packy McCormick

Chicago Restaurant Recommendations: Nonnina Chicago, Siena Tavern, & Fertido.

Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired.Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.

Mark Achler is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Chicago-based MATH Venture Partners. Previously, Mark drove innovation and sales at Redbox and co-founded a number of successful startups in his career. He began his VC career in the Chicagoland area at Kettle Partners. He then co-founded MATH Venture Partners in 2014, which invests in early-stage technology businesses, such as Chowly, Acorns, and Built In.

Mark spoke with Matt about his background, what led him into Venture Capital, the genesis of Math Venture Partners, why doing your homework is so important, and the history of the Chicago startup ecosystem. 

Jackson Bubala is a Senior Associate at Motivate Venture Capital, a Chicago-based early-stage fund. He recently joined the Motivate team after spending the first three years of his career at Manifold Group. He writes a weekly newsletter, Stealing Signs. 

Jackson spoke with Matt about his background, why he has enjoyed working at generalist funds, the biggest opportunities in e-commerce, why B2B marketplaces excite him, and the Chicago Food Scene.