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The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), the leading voice for the nation’s VC and startup community, and their 501(c)(3) organization Venture Forward, announced today that Chicago:Blend has been selected to receive the 2023 NVCA DEI Impact Award, which recognizes individuals, organizations or firms who have made a significant impact toward advancing equity in venture.
Read MoreBess Goodfellow is passionate about empowering founders as they build transformative companies. As a Principal, Bess is tasked with sourcing high growth companies across the Midwest and supporting those investments through their lifecycle. Her portfolio of investments spans a broad spectrum of industry including enterprise, fintech, consumer, and digital health.
Read MoreWe are delighted to introduce our Spring 2023 Chicago Venture Fellows! From February 1 to May 10, these aspiring venture capitalists will get a crash course in venture finance and learn from Chicago’s top VCs and tech leaders, all while gaining real-world experience sourcing and evaluating deal flow.
Read MoreChicago’s venture capital industry is 78% men and 66% white. Chicago:Blend wants to change that. The local organization first launched in 2018 as a collaborative effort by venture capitalists in Chicago to measure and increase diversity, equity and inclusion at Chicago VC firms.
Read MoreWe are excited to introduce our Fall 2022 Chicago Venture Fellows! For the next four months, these aspiring venture capitalists will get a crash course in venture finance and learn from Chicago’s top VCs and tech leaders, all while sourcing deals to pitch to local investors.
Read MoreCristin Pacifico is a Director on the investment team at TechNexus Venture Collaborative, where she drives innovation by connecting corporations with startups. Throughout her career, she’s been an investor, an entrepreneur, and an operator.
Read MoreCHICAGO–The non-profit organization Chicago:Blend announced today that Tessa Flippin of Capitalize VC and Jason Mercer of Cleveland Avenue have joined their governing board of directors following a unanimous vote by the organization’s existing directors.
Read MoreChicago:Blend, a nonprofit that works to advance diversity and inclusion within the venture-capital and startup space, announced the findings during a Tuesday webinar. The survey was conducted in partnership with CDW and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the University of Chicago
Read MoreCHICAGO–The non-profit organization Chicago:Blend today released findings from their 2022 Startup Diversity Survey measuring gender, racial and ethnic representation among venture-backed startups in the Chicago area.
Read MoreMichael W. Frerichs was first elected Illinois State Treasurer in 2014 and serves as the state’s Chief Investment and Banking Officer. The State Treasurer’s Office actively manages approximately $35 billion, investing money on behalf of the state and local units of government.
Read MoreMichael is a Senior Principal of HPA and manages and supports HPA’s investment opportunities through their lifecycle. Michael has led investment in a number of HPA’s top performing investments including Provi, Hologram, FourKites, and Motion AI. Prior to joining HPA in 2013, Michael attended Northwestern University and worked at strategy consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton supporting various government clients in the Pentagon.
Read MoreAcording to 2021 data from Chicago:Blend and the Polsky Center at the University of Chicago, 66.15 percent of roles at VC firms are held by men while women make up 33.85 percent of these roles in Chicago.
Read MoreChicago:Blend is delighted to introduce the 10 Fellows participating in the Summer 2022 Cohort of our new Chicago Venture Fellows program!
Read MoreChicago:Blend, a nonprofit committed to increasing diversity in Chicago’s VC firms and startups, announced on Tuesday that it will launch a bi-annual Chicago Venture Fellows program for aspiring venture capitalists from underrepresented communities.
Read More"2022 is on track to be another big year for Chicago tech," Chicago:Blend executive director Joey Mak tells Axios.
"Prioritizing diversity and inclusive growth within our tech and VC sector is not only the right thing to do, but it can also be a competitive advantage for the region, enabling us to attract and retain the best talent."
Read MoreToday, Chicago:Blend announced the launch of the Chicago Venture Fellows, a program that was initially incubated at GET Cities in 2021. The program is designed to help aspiring venture capital professionals from underrepresented backgrounds break into the industry in Chicago, which is 78 percent white and 66 percent men.
Read MoreYvan-Claude Pierre is a Corporate & Securities Partner for Cooley LLP. He is a leading capital markets lawyer and one of the only Black partners in the US and globally for IPO representations. YCP led the founding of Cooley’s Chicago office and serves on Chicago:Blend's Advisory Board.
Read MoreKojo Mensah-Bonsu III is the Global Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at CDW. In this latest Spotlight by Chicago:Blend, Kojo shares his thought about DEI and Chicago’s tech and startup community.
Read MoreAccording to the annual VC Diversity Survey from Chicago:Blend, 2021 did see growth in both minorities and women working in venture capital, but Chicago is still behind national averages.
Read MoreCHICAGO–The non-profit organization Chicago:Blend today released findings from their VC Diversity Survey, an annual benchmark measuring gender, racial and ethnic trends among employees at Chicago-area venture capital firms.
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