By Neal Sáles-Griffin, Managing Director of Techstars Chicago

On behalf of the Techstars Chicago powered by J.P. Morgan team and community, It’s my honor to introduce you to our first class.

Each of the companies you’ll read about below went through a rigorous journey to get here. Among hundreds of other founders who applied, they managed to prove three key things to our team: 

1. They know their customer’s pain better than the competition. 

2. They are data-driven and can control their levers for growth. 

3. They have personal mastery and keen understanding of their team’s strengths and weaknesses to build a successful and scalable technology company.

At Techstars in Chicago we front-load intensive training on financial modeling, customer discovery, and data-driven sales in our program. So, our selection process included intensive scrutiny on businesses who had the potential to take full advantage of our support in these areas.

We also recognize the importance of having a class of founders to reflect the diversity of our community in Chicago. With more diversity among our founders, comes more diversity of thought and the way in which we together can problem solve.  Our program is open to founders of all backgrounds, with a particular focus on diverse entrepreneurs traditionally undervalued and overlooked by other venture capital sources.

I can’t wait to hear what you think of these founders and their businesses. As one of their first and earliest investors, I’m excited to help each of them make a dent in the universe (along with some money along the way too).

Please welcome our next class of technology companies into our Chicago community, a community that embodies the core value at Techstars of #givefirst!

Activated Scale: Marketplace connecting startups with flexible sales talent

Clickvoyant: AI that turns raw marketing data into insight presentations in minutes

dev-docs: Making developer documentation painless

Daedalus: No code platform for algorithmic trading

Globowl: Internationally-inspired baby food for future foodies

Leagueswype: Digital wallet for legalized sports bettors

Parkster.ai: Displaying locations of available parking spaces in real time to drivers

Pay4Me App: Seamless cross-border payments for international students and migrants

SMARTCharts: A platform for rehabilitation patients and care teams to see and celebrate progress

STIGMA: Creating safe spaces to practice talking about mental health

Taste: Making Social Fun

XpressRun: One API to enable DTC brands to deliver smarter & faster than prime

Read More