Chicago Funds 25 Startups For $188 Million In Q2 2012 Smashes Q1

Chicago recently played host to a great regional tech and startup conference called TechWeek 2012. Judging on the activity at the conference and the legendary after parties it should be no surprise that startup activity in Chicago is big. How big? Try $188 million dollars big of 25 startup companies. Two companies; Dealstar and Tribeca Flashpoint Acacdemy also exited in Q2 without disclosing financials behind their deals.

GoHealth received the most money in Q2 2012 with $50 million by Norwest Equity Partners. Valence Health came in second place with $30 million. In the tech space Singlehop led with $27.5 million. Total Attorneys was second in the non health space with $15 million.

Chicago’s startup de jour, Belly, pulled in two rounds of funding in Q2 for a total of $12.5 million. Lightbank Capital and Silicon Valley Bank teamed up for a $2.5m round for Belly in April and Silicon Valley powerhouse firm, Andreesseen Horowitz invested $10m in May.

The bigger story for Chicago is that in Q1 2012 there was just $33 million in funding split between 17 companies.

Here’s the complete list of companies funded in Q2 from BuiltinChicago.com

  • Arroweye              $3 million
  • Belly                       $12.5 million
  • BenchPrep            $6 million
  • BrightTag             $15 million
  • Dabble                   $140,000
  • Elevate Digital    $2.7 million
  • Future Simple     $6.8 million
  • GoHealth            $50 million
  • gtrot                     $920,000
  • Journatic            $3.2 million
  • Kapow Events   $700,000
  • Mediafly             $200,000
  • MentorMob       $150,000
  • Monthlys            not reported
  • Neighborhoods not reported
  • New Futuro        $1.3 million
  • Open Kennel      $440,000
  • Restaurant.com $8,000,000
  • Singlehop            $27.5 million
  • SocialKaty           $300,000
  • Tempo                  $750,000
  • Total Attorneys  $15M
  • Unmetric              $3.2M
  • Valence Health   $30M

Linkage:

Source: Built In Chicago 1   2

Check out Nibletz’ coverage of Chicago TechWeek 2012

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” and we could sure use your support