Chicago VC firm is the country's most likely to fund women-founded startups
Last week, Chicago’s Pritzker Group Venture Capital and Lightbank were named as two of the venture capital firms most likely to fund startups founded by women. Pritzker took the top spot with Lightbank coming in fourth. More than 15 percent of Lightbank’s portfolio is made up of female-founded companies. For Pritzker Group, that number is over 20 percent. The rankings were created by Instacart’s head data scientist, Jeremy Stanley, with funding data from 2009 to 2013 pulled from Crunchbase. [Crain’s]
Crowdsourced restaurant secret shopper app stealthily launches
New York-based Servy, an iOS and Android app that uses crowdsourcing to create a cheaper and more accurate form of restaurant mystery shopping, has stealthily launched in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune reports that the platform’s mystery shoppers are paid between $3 and $30 to rate restaurants they frequent, with the idea being that regulars will provide more accurate answers to Servy’s custom questionnaires. Chicago is the company’s second market, and so far its beta test has attracted around 2,000 users. [Chicago Tribune]
Tech companies stay hot in June, raise $125 million in new funding
Chicago tech rang in the first month of summer by raising $125 million in June fundings. That money was distributed across the board as 11 companies raised more than $1 million apiece. That being said, June was still a big month for big rounds. Five companies pulled in a total of $110 million, with Fusion Risk Management, Inc. receiving $41 million in fresh funds from Catalyst Investors. [Built In Chicago]
Another MATTER member pulls in funding for new medical device
Health innovation incubator MATTER has seen another one of its members land funding. Last Thursday, Edge Surgical told Crain’s it has raised $1.4 million. Edge’s product is a disposable device for electronically measuring the depths of screws used in orthopedic surgery. Edge Surgical plans to have its new tool on sale this fall, and in the meantime it’s working on a similar device meant to be used in spinal operations. [Crain’s]
Chicago software consulting firm acquired for undisclosed sum
Software consulting firm Clarity Consulting, number 97 on our 2016 list of top digital companies in Chicago, was acquired by St. Louis-based “digital transformation” consulting company Perficient for an undisclosed amount. While the exact financial details are unknown, CRN did report that the deal will be a 70-30 cash and stock split. Clarity’s 160 employees will become part of Perficient, where they will work on the company’s Microsoft business group. [CRN]
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