|
Lightbank
Lightbank is a financial organization that specializes in making venture capital investments including seed investments, Series A round and late-stage investments in companies across the United States. The company was founded in 2010, and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Investments Lightbank has raised over $700M and with a $290M Fund III. Lightbank's Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell were original co-founders of Groupon. Lightbank investments include Groupon, Tempus AI, Fiverr, Udemy, Sprout Social, Snapsheet, Belly (loyalty program), Belly, Boom Technology, SpotHero, BenchPrep, Qwiki, Fooda, HighGround, and Hello Divorce. Partners Lefkofsky was a co-founder of Lightbank, though he became 'Special Advisor' in 2014–2015 during his tenure as CEO of Groupon. He then returned to Lightbank as managing partner in November 2015 after stepping down as CEO of Groupon. Other partners include Eric Ong, Matt Sacks, and Bill Pescatello. See also *Venture builders ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brad Keywell
Bradley A. Keywell (born October 1969) is an American billionaire entrepreneur. He is the founder and executive chairman of Uptake Technologies, an industrial AI software provider. He is an early investor of Tempus AI, co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics, Mediaocean, DRIVIN, and Lightbank. He founded WNDR Museum and Chicago Ideas. As of March 2024, ''Forbes'' estimated his net worth at US$1.1 billion, down from $2.7 billion in December 2021. Keywell is the recipient of the 2019 EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year award, after receiving the overall USA EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2018. Early life and education Bradley A. Keywell grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and attended Cranbrook Schools. He studied at the London School of Economics in 1990, received a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1991 from the University of Michigan and a Juris Doctor ''cum laude'' in 1993 from the University of Michigan Law School. He is a member of the State Bar of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Lefkofsky
Eric Paul Lefkofsky (born September 2, 1969) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Tempus AI, and the co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics (ECHO), InnerWorkings (INWK), and Mediaocean. , he is also a co-managing partner of Chicago-based venture capital firm Lightbank. As of October 2024, his net worth was estimated at US$4.4 billion. Biography Lefkofsky was born in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and grew up in Southfield. His father, Bill, was a structural engineer, and his mother, Sandy, was a school teacher. After graduating from Southfield-Lathrup High School in 1987, he attended the University of Michigan and graduated with honors in 1991. He enrolled at the University of Michigan Law School and received his Juris Doctor in 1993. Entrepreneurial ventures After graduating from law school in 1993, Lefkofsky and a college friend, Brad Keywell, borrowed money from relatives to buy Brandon Apparel, a clothing company in Madison, Wiscon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Groupon
Groupon, Inc. is an American global e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in 13 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched there in November 2008, launching soon after in Boston, New York City and Toronto. By October 2010, Groupon was available in 150 cities in North America and 100 cities in Europe, Asia and South America, and had 35 million registered users. By the end of March 2015, Groupon served more than 500 cities worldwide, nearly 48.1 million active customers and featured more than 425,000 active deals globally in 48 countries."Groupon Q1 2015 Public Fact Sheet." Groupon. Retrieved June 1, 2015. http://investor.groupon.com/index.cfm . The idea for Groupon was created by former CEO and Pittsburgh native Andrew Mason. The idea gained the attention of his former employer, Eric Lefkofsky, who provided $1 million in seed money to develop the idea. In April 2010, the company was valued ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpotHero
SpotHero is a digital parking marketplace that connects drivers looking to reserve and pay for parking spaces with parking lots, parking garages and valet services. The company, which operates a mobile app and website as well as a parking developer platform, is available in over 300 cities in the United States and Canada. The company is based in Chicago, Illinois. History Early beginnings SpotHero was founded by Mark Lawrence and Jeremy Smith in Chicago in 2011, with co-founder Larry Kiss joining the company soon after.Kate Rogers"SpotHero: An app that makes parking reservations,"CNBC, May 7, 2015. The company started out as a peer-to-peer parking marketplace, where people could rent out their own private parking spots, before expanding the platform to partner with parking companies and garages.Kia Kokalitcheva"SpotHero launches its parking app in SF, and on-demand valet startups should worry,"VentureBeat, December 9, 2014.Alex Moazed"SpotHero Paves the Way for Parking,"'' Inc.'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belly (loyalty Program)
Belly was a loyalty program founded in August 2011 in Chicago by Logan LaHive and Craig Ulliott, receiving its initial round of around $3M in funding from Chicago-based venture capital firm Lightbank. Belly provides a loyalty program for merchants, using an in-store iPad for the merchant and an app for customers. It charges merchants $50 to $100 a month for the service, which includes an iPad, a case and lock for the iPad, marketing materials, plus data and analytics. Customers earn loyalty points by checking in at the store with a QR code technology to earn points that could be redeemed as a merchant chose.Tricia DuryeeFour Reasons Why Andreessen Horowitz Is Investing $10 Million in Belly AllThingsD, May 8, 2012 History By May 2012, Belly had signed up around 1,400 merchants and was available in Chicago, Austin, Milwaukee, Madison, Wis., Washington D.C., Phoenix, New York and Boston, and had around 200,000 active users. At that time it received an additional $10M in funding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BenchPrep
BenchPrep is an American company that provides cloud-based study guides for standardized tests, professional certifications, and K-12 classroom learning. It has partnered with educational publishers such as McGraw Hill, John Wiley & Sons, and the Princeton Review to create interactive, digitized courses. History BenchPrep, formerly known as Watermelon Express, was founded in 2009 by Ashish Rangnekar and Ujjwal Gupta, after Ashish Rangnekar won the New Venture Challenge at the University of Chicago. Shortly thereafter, BenchPrep received $2.2 million in seed funding from Lightbank, the executives behind Groupon. In July 2012, the company announced a $6 million round of funding from New Enterprise Associates and Revolution LLC Revolution LLC is an American investment firm based in Washington, D.C., founded in 2005 by AOL co-founder Steve Case, after leaving the AOL Time Warner board. The firm seeks to fund entrepreneurs who are transforming legacy industries with inn .... ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qwiki
Qwiki was a New York City–based startup automated video production company acquired by Yahoo! on July 2, 2013 for a reported $50 million. Qwiki released an iPhone app that automatically turns the pictures and videos from a user's camera roll into movies to share. The company's initial product, an iPad application that created video summaries of over 3 million search terms, was downloaded more than 3 million times and named by Apple as the best "Search and Reference" application of 2011. After integrating this technology in the Bing search engine and launching video creation tools for major publishers in cooperation with ABC News, the company launched Qwiki for iPhone, which received Apple's Editor's Choice and was mentioned as an Honoree in the 2013 Webby's in two categories. Time Inc. named Qwiki one of “10 NYC Startups to Watch” for 2013. The company's investors included cofounders of Facebook, YouTube and Groupon. After a meeting between Doug Imbruce and Marissa Mayer, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VentureBeat
''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. ''VentureBeat'' is a tech news source that publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos. The ''VentureBeat'' company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall, an ex-correspondent for ''The Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...''. History In March 2009, ''VentureBeat'' signed a partnership agreement with IDG to produce DEMO Conference, a conference for startups to announce their launches and raise funding from venture capitalists and angel investors. The partnership with IDG ended in 2012. In September 2009, Matt Marshall took on the role of executive producer for the DEMO conference. Over the years, a variety of companies have launched ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sprout Social
Sprout Social, Inc. is a social media management platform founded in 2010 by Justyn Howard, Aaron Rankin, Gil Lara, and Peter Soung. Sprout is a public company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, IL. History Sprout Social, Inc. was founded in April 2010. The company has raised a total of $60 million, including a $1 million initial funding round in 2010 led by Lightbank, $10 million in Series B funding from New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in February 2011, and $42 million in Series C funding from Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and NEA. In November 2011, Sprout released S2, the second generation of the platform that is the basis of the current model. This release included customizable dashboards tailored to each user's social media responsibilities, support for multiple users, iPhone functionality, various options for strategic partner integrations, and more. In April 2015, Sprout released Spanish and Portuguese language support. In August 2015, Sprout launc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venture Fund
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and often come from high technology industries such as information technology (IT) or biotechnology. Pre-seed and seed rounds are the initial stages of funding for a startup company, typically occurring early in its development. During a seed round, entrepreneurs seek investment fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Udemy
Udemy ( ) is an American global massive open online course provider. It was founded in May 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar. It is based in San Francisco, California, United States. The platform hosts online courses, mostly connected to job-related skills. Products and services Udemy is a platform that allows instructors to host online courses on their preferred topics. Instructors can upload videos and other educational material. Courses are offered in various categories, including business, academics, health and fitness, and music. Most classes are in practical subjects such as AWS and Azure training, Excel software or using an iPhone camera. Udemy has been described by some sources as a massive open online course (MOOC) platform, similar to platforms like Udacity and Coursera. Courses on Udemy can be paid or free, depending on the instructor. In 2015, the top 10 instructors made more than $17 million in total revenue. In April 2013, Udemy offered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Companies Based In Chicago
A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether natural, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared goals. Over time, companies have evolved to have the following features: "separate legal personality, limited liability, transferable shares, investor ownership, and a managerial hierarchy". The company, as an entity, was created by the state which granted the privilege of incorporation. Companies take various forms, such as: * voluntary associations, which may include nonprofit organizations * business entities, whose aim is to generate sales, revenue, and profit * financial entities and banks * programs or educational institutions A company can be created as a legal person so that the company itself has limited liability as members perform or fail to discharge their duties according to the publicly declared incorporatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
