When many entrepreneurs begin their journey, no one knows who they are or what they are about to accomplish. Often, the people who back a startup and help drive growth stay behind the scenes. We believe great ideas deserve a start — even if they don't have a name yet.  We're an early stage (Seed to Series A) technology investor based in Chicago. We're entrepreneurs and investors who have helped start and operate dozens of startups, and we back our founders in every sense of the word.

Nameless Ventures

Floodgate Fund is a venture capital firm that focuses on early stage investments in technology companies. It was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Floodgate

Fuel Capital is an early-stage venture fund dedicated to being more than a source of capital - we want to be true confidantes to every founder in the Fuel family. We stand in our founder’s corner, not their kitchen. We leverage our resources, connections, experience, and expertise to carve a shortcut for them - so their energy is spent on building the future, instead of knocking on doors.  Fuel was founded in 2013 by Chris Howard. Leah Solivan, founder of TaskRabbit, joined as a General Partner in 2017.  We invests in consumer, business software and cloud/ infrastructure companies. With a strong track record - including investments in 8 unicorns (Convoy, Flexport, Figma, Pacaso, Lattice, Highspot, thredUP, and Weave), several recently acquired companies (CTRL-Labs - acquired by Facebook, CoreOS - acquired by RedHat, Nervana - acquired by Intel, Hightower - acquired by View the Space), as well as numerous up-and-coming companies - Fuel has rightfully earned the reputation of being one of Silicon Valley’s leading seed funds.

Fuel Capital

Born out of a love for building startups and a passion for backing entrepreneurs with heart, Corazon Capital (spanish for “heart”), a leading Chicago-based venture fund, brings a coastal approach to Seed and Series A investing. With a rare blend of investing experience and operating expertise, Corazon provides unusually pragmatic, actionable counsel to the entrepreneurs it supports. Corazon believes that the best entrepreneurs and the smartest VCs will intentionally solicit both financial and operating investors in their syndicates, with Corazon recognized across geographies for its deep operating knowledge and reach inside and outside of Chicago.  Corazon’s co-founders, Sam Yagan and Steve Farsht, have accomplished track records as investors and operators. Sam co-founded SparkNotes, eDonkey, and OKCupid before posting up as CEO of Match Group (NASDAQ: MTCH) through its IPO, and most recently taking the reins as the CEO of Shoprunner. As a General Partner at Norwest Equity Partners, Steve participated in its growth from five to twenty-five investment professionals. He honed his operating chops as CEO of DCM Services, an NEP portfolio company. After moving to Chicago, Steve immersed himself in the startup ecosystem, first as COO of Tap.me and then co-CEO of Techstars Chicago.   Upon launching its second fund, Corazon added Phil Schwarz, the former CMO of Tinder, where he was responsible for growth, brand and retention marketing on a global basis. Previously, Phil was Head of Growth Initiatives at Match Group and co-founder of the Kaplan/Techstars EdTech accelerator.  Together, Corazon’s principals have founded six companies through to four exits, served as CEOs of companies worth over $5 billion (including taking a company public), executed over $1 billion in acquisitions, invested in excess of $300 million in private companies, and held over 30 board seats.

Corazon Capital

Network Ventures is a Chicago-based company that provides venture capital to seed stage companies.

Network Ventures

Magic Fund is built on a thesis that smaller funds run by founders perform best in early-stage investing (pre-seed/seed). We're a fund of micro-funds run by repeat founders with strong expertise in specific industries and geographies.

MAGIC Fund

Y Combinator is a startup accelerator that invests in a large number of startups twice a year. It created a new model for funding startups. Twice a year, the company invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups. The startup accelerator works intensively with the companies for three months, to get them into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors. Each cycle culminates in Demo Day when the startups present their companies to a carefully selected, invite-only audience.

Y Combinator

Founded in 2015, New Stack Ventures is an early-stage venture firm based Chicago, Illinois. The firm targets pre-seed and seed stage startups investing $300k - $2M.

New Stack Ventures

Liquid2 Ventures provides technology startups with seed-stage investments and is based in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded in 2015 by Joe Montana, Mike Miller, and Michael Ma.

Liquid 2 Ventures

Draftbit

Draftbit is a new way to build cross-platform, native iOS and Android apps in minutes instead of months. Whether you're a designer or developer, with Draftbit you can design your app visually, and then export clean, well-documented code and libraries that give you full control.

Draftbit is a no-code platform that allows users to build cross-platform, native iOS and Android apps. It caters to designers and developers by enabling them to design apps visually, and then export code and libraries that give users full control. It also allows users to customize details such as advanced properties, themes, custom codes, etc., and add interactions, navigation, and live data.

Now anyone can become a software developer.

No-code Software

A new generation of builders is coming online: Q&A with Brian Luerssen of Draftbit

Index offers a no-code platform for enterprises to build dashboards for internal use to obtain insights on business metrics, investor updates and operation overviews, among others. As of June 2021, the product remains at beta, with a limited early preview. The platform provides prebuilt templates, and also has tools for users to build their own dashboards. The dashboard can be integrated with multiple apps including Hubspot ((customer relationship management data), Stripe (payment data), and Postgres and MongoDB (databases), slack (remote working) and Google Sheets (spreadsheets), among others. The company raised USD 2.6 million in Seed funding in October 2020. It intends to invest the funds in hiring two engineers (in addition to the two founders) and continuing to refine and develop the product. The founders aim to reach USD 1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and expand their product distribution.

Index

<div>
 
 Stencyl offers a drag-and-drop no-code platform that enables users to create and publish web and mobile games. Users can build their game logic using the platform&rsquo;s pre-built code blocks, design visual elements via an in-built graphics editor, and publish across a range of platform&rsquo;s such as IoS, Android, Windows and Mac. Moreover,&nbsp; Stencyl also enables users to embed ads into their games as a secondary source of revenue.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of February 2024, Stencyl was used by over 500,000 registered developers. Apps created on Stencyl have reached top slots in the Apple App Store and Google Play, and its most successful web games have been sponsored by major publishers including ArmorGames, Kongregate, and Newgrounds.
 
</div>

Stencyl

Universe offers a no-code platform for users to build websites that can be added to social media pages. Websites can be built using drag and drop blocks to add images, videos, and other content to create a mobile-first website. The Platform offers creative controls, 30 pre-made themes, and block features to allow users to create a custom site and/or open an e-commerce store directly from a mobile phone.The company began as a landing page builder and progressed to developing websites, which include tools for adding shopping blocks. Universe targets micro businesses that are not tech-savvy.<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20509">In July 2023 </a>, Universe launched the beta version of Generative Universe Sites (GUS), an AI-powered website designing tool. This solution provides a conversational interface for users to dictate their requirements for a website and then generates a customized web page.Funding and financialsIn December 2021, Universe raised USD 30 million in a Series B funding round led by Addition to develop the company’s block-based system for website building named “GRID,” expand its commercial offering for startups, and extend GRID to more platforms and devices. Additionally, the company used the funds to expand its reach in new markets and grow its employee base.

Universe

Readymag is a web-based drag and drop tool that enables users to create websites, presentations and digital magazines. Its customers include large enterprises such as AirBnB, Forbes, Esquire, and IDEO.

Readymag

UserGuiding is a user onboarding tool that helps create interactive guides for customers. Functions include user onboarding, feature adoption, in-product messaging, and customer feedback, among others. As of September 2020, the company had over 2,000 global enterprise clients. UserGuiding raised USD 1.1 million in seed funding in August 2020, which it intends to use to expand its operations by increasing its workforce, accelerating global expansion, and enhancing product development.

UserGuiding

Allows users to create apps for their own businesses by using their data and ideas and converting them into apps to improve their workflow.

Platforms that allow users to create online/mobile games in a no-code environment.

Platforms and tools that enable users to build mobile-based apps using templates and tools (widgets) in a visual environment.

Platforms that let users create workflow and process management systems in a spreadsheet format integrating with databases. This also includes data science tools, which enable users to run predictive analysis on data sets through drag-and-drop functions using artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Tools that allow users to build websites, ranging from blogs to e-commerce sites, in a visual environment without the need for coding. Often has no-code tools to integrate with other online tools, such as payment gateways.

Offers solutions for building internal applications and automations for enterprises

Many solutions enable users to leverage AI/ML for predictive analytics

Offers solutions for building enterprise-specific applications and automations

Some solutions leverage GenAI to enable users to build application and website templates without coding

Draftbit

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