INNOVATE® Chicago Vol.1

86 Repairs is the repair and maintenance management platform built for the restaurant industry. Our tech-enabled solution includes on-demand repair management and preventative maintenance. With 86 Repairs, restaurants have access to data-driven insights and 24/7 support to control their facilities, reduce their R&M costs, and spend less of their team’s...

The mission of the Chicago Furniture Bank (CFB) is to provide dignity, stability, and comfort to Chicagoans facing poverty by allowing our clients to handpick an entire home’s worth of furnishings for free. As the country’s largest furniture bank, we furnish 15 client homes per day through partnerships with our...

Committed to Growth and Innovation Since 1935At William Blair, growth and innovation are in our DNA. As an independent, private partnership, we are committed to providing the world’s leading venture firms with the expert guidance and creative solutions required to unlock value for investors and their portfolio companies. We are...

ABOUT BMOFor over 200 years, BMO has been helping individuals and families, small and medium-sized businesses, corporations and institutions that form the backbone of the communities we serve. We are a highly diversified financial services provider, with a deep sense of purpose and a clear strategy for driving strong customer...

What started in 2003 as a mother’s vision to change the world’s perception of individuals with Down syndrome and create opportunities for her daughter, GiGi, evolved into a global movement of acceptance for all. GiGi’s Playhouse started in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and has catapulted to an entrepreneurial network of 60...

The story of Nature’s Fynd™ begins millions of years ago, in an acidic hot spring located in what is today Yellowstone National Park when a remarkable microbe was born. In 2009, NASA-backed research on extremophiles led our co-founder to the park’s hot springs. He then isolated and discovered a remarkable...

Astronomy and space science are rich with breakthrough discoveries and big questions about the universe and our place in it. In this digital age, stunning imagery and detailed information is readily available—anyone with an internet connection can dive deep into any topic that piques their interest. In an information-saturated world,...

  Wavicle Data Solutions is a nimble consulting firm that focuses 100% on providing end-to-end data and analytics strategy, services, and support. Thanks to its deep technical expertise, business acumen, and proprietary accelerators Wavicle is able to help its clients drastically reduce the time, cost, and risk of collecting, analyzing,...

Steadfast began in 1998 as an internet-technology passion project for Steadfast’s Founder, Karl Zimmerman, when he was only 14 years old. Karl’s dream to help companies with their data hosting and security needs started early on, and through these relationships, Karl learned there was a frustrating gap with many hosting...

The acute shortage of technology workers in the United States has driven up wages significantly. The median annual salary of an entry-level employee working on a help desk is $53,470, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median salary for all tech workers is $81,000. The expected growth...

PowerReviews works with more than 1,000 global brands and retailers to help them collect, display and analyze user-generated content – Ratings and Reviews, Questions and Answers, and images and videos – on their websites. As more consumers flocked online as a result of Covid, this content actually became significantly more...

ActiveCampaign is the leader in Customer Experience Automation (CXA), helping businesses across the world meaningfully engage with their customers. Our platform gives businesses of all sizes access to 820+ prebuilt automations that combine email marketing, marketing automation and CRM for powerful segmentation and personalization across social, email, messaging, chat and...

REBOOT PARTNERS Reboot Partners helps emerging growth company CEO’s to operate at scale and accelerate global growth—and advises Fortune 1000 executives and multi-national corporations on how to tackle their most challenging issues, by seizing emerging market opportunities, building global partnerships and development initiatives, and leading sustainable digital-transformation programs. From behind-the-scenes...

Rheaply’s platform is helping scale the circular economy — an economic model that emphasizes keeping resources in constant circulation rather than discarding them and adding to landfills. Through its resource exchange platform, Rheaply empowers organizations to better manage, exchange, and track their material resources, helping them save money and eliminate...

PechaKucha was born in 2003 because people talk too much. That’s what happens when passionate people gather together to share ideas and creations. PechaKucha, which means “chit-chat” in Japanese, was founded in Tokyo by architects Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein of Klein Dytham architecture. It originated as a “20×20’’ live...

Revoou is a product review and product recommendation content producer and website that provides Spanish-language online shoppers with independent and trustworthy, easy-to-digest information and comparison tables about products and services to make the most informed online purchasing decisions. It’s a model English-speakers have seen dozens of times, but the team...

Livly, Inc. is revolutionizing apartment living & powering communities across the globe. Founded in Chicago in 2017, Livly has built the first unified enterprise-grade operating system tailored specifically for residential properties. The Livly operating system serves as the remote control for apartment living, connecting residents, guests, staff, and vendors with...

It’s no secret that we live in a fast-paced world. Technology is constantly changing, cyber security attacks are on the rise, and consumer interests and needs continue to evolve. To keep up, Managed Service Providers (MSP) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) are having to modify their offerings to adhere...

Blue Bist is a boutique consulting company based in Chicago, IL. We specialize in change management, team dynamics, and operations transformations. We provide fractional and remote COO, CPO, and CTO support to startups and mentor first-time founders on how to scale. We are a diverse, professional, woman-owned business with a...

HabitNu is a digital therapeutic technology company that focuses on preventing and managing chronic diseases by helping individuals build new, healthy habits. HabitNu leverages proven scientific goal-setting research to drive new habit formation for the prevention and management of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension. HabitNu’s approach...

SIWA Therapeutics, Inc. has developed 318H, a monoclonal antibody that we believe can become a broadly effective cancer immunotherapeutic. Most recently, we showed that 318H enabled complete remission of pancreatic cancer in vivo in humanized mice – we hope to file an IND application for pancreatic cancer next year. Our...

Freeborn is proud to deliver sector-specific legal advice that stems from decades of experience and a rich understanding of business and industry perspectives. Along with providing exceptional legal services, each Freeborn attorney embodies the firm’s five Core Values, integrity, caring, effectiveness, teamwork, and commitment, through high standards of client service...