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OCA Ventures, a prominent Chicago-based venture capital firm that has invested in a number of Chicago startups, is raising a new $100 million fund. The fund which, OCA Ventures acknowledged in a tweet, will be the company’s 3rd fund since being founded in 1999. OCA Ventures focuses on early stage tech companies, primarily Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds of investment.
A number of Chicago-based companies have received investments from OCA Ventures, including SpotHero, a parking search app, Base CRM, cloud-based customer relationship management software, Pangea, online money transfer software, SwipeSense, cloud-based software that tracks how often soap and disinfectant dispensers are used, Cleversafe, a cloud-based data storage system, Whittl, a haircut booking service, and Excelerate Labs, an accelerator that is now Techstars Chicago.
The firm typically invests in technology, financial services, education and healthcare technology companies. It tends to invest $1 to $4 million in initial rounds and said on its website that it is the lead investor on 75 percent of those deals. OCA EDGE, the firm’s seed investing program, focuses on investing $50,000 to $200,000 in rounds of roughly $1.5 million or less.
Priding itself on being an early investor and using its support system and network to help propel young companies to later rounds of investment, OCA Ventures said it has invested in 60 companies and claims to be responsible for $700 million in follow on capital.
OCA Ventures is led by CEO Jim Dugan, who co-founded the firm with general partners John Dugan and Peter Ianello. The firm’s headquarters are in River North.
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