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ReTel Technologies + George Aspland + Scott Roberts + Adam Rodnitzky

ReTelTechnolC24b-A02cT04a-Z_revised_mdmReTel Technologies has created a system that allows retailers, consumer packaged goods companies and quick service restaurants to tap into their own surveillance cameras to deliver large scale analysis of consumer behavior and operational factors in retail and restaurant locations.

Founders of Re Tel George Aspland, Adam Rodnitzky and Scott Roberts competed in the University of Chicago New Venture Challenge in 2007-2008.  Adam previously co-founded tixnix.com


Dimensions: <10 people x 2008 x $NDA
Funding:
Grants from the Illinois Technology Association and the Midwest Venture Summit
Customers: Retailers, CPG companies and quick-service restaurants
Location: Chicago + reteltechnologies.com

Posted by Mike Evans. See an interview with Adam

Everyblock.com + Adrian Holovaty + Wilson Miner + Dan O’Neil + Paul Smith

Everyblock_logo Everyblock.com is an evolution of the concept of chicagocrime.org.  It filters an assortment of local news by location so you can keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city. It contains civic information, news articles, blog entries and other fun from accross the web.

Prior to Everyblock Adrian was head of innovations for the Washington Post. He also is the co-creator of the Django Web Framework.


Dimensions: <10 people x 2007 x $NDA
Funding:
$1.1 million grant from Knight Foundation
Customers: Residents of 11 U.S. cities
Location: Chicago + www.everyblock.com

Posted by Mike Evans. See an Interview with Adrian

Dawdle + Sachin Agarwal + Jaun Inton

Logo_dawdle Dawdle is the gamer's online marketplace. Their mission is to "To make it moronically easy for gamers to buy and sell video games and gear online." Sellers post their games to a fixed price marketplace. Buyer's find games through an interface inspired by priceline. The marketplace is highly relevant to the specific set of buyers and sellers interested in video games.

Founder of dawdle, Sachin Agarwal, worked in venture capital and investment banking. He started Dawdle in August of 2007 along with co-founder Juan Inton.

Dimensions: <10 people x ~2 years (2007) x $NDA
Funding:
Bootstrapped
Customers: Gamers buying and selling games, systems and accesories
Location: Chicago + www.dawdle.com

Posted by Mike Evans. See an interview with Sachin

Cappex + Leon Heller + Mike Moyer + Jace Mouse

Logotagline3 Cappex has set out to improve the college admissions process by helping universities and students connect. High school students fill out a profile on Cappex and receive invitations to apply to universities they may have never heard about otherwise. Meanwhile, Cappex works one-on-one with colleges to help them target appropriate students. The service is free students and most colleges, it will be advertiser supported.

The founder of Cappex, Leon Heller, was previously chairman and CEO of FastWeb until it was sold to Monster in in 2001. Also on the core team are Mike Moyer and Jace Mouse. Mike has held sales and marketing roles with a variety of companies including RealNetworks and Bissell. Jace has held technology roles at Orbitz, Cars.com, iExplore, and State Farm Insurance.

Dimensions:  <50 people x  ~1 year (2006) x $NDA
Funding: Private investors
Customers: Students trying to choose a college, pay for college, or choose a career
Location: Chicago [Highland Park] + www.cappex.com

Humanized + Aza Raskin + Jono DiCarlo + Atul Varma + Andrew Wilson

Humanized Humanized is a small start-up on the north side of Chicago that is re-thinking the way you interact with your computer. Their product, Enso, takes simple tasks you do every day, in lots of your applications, and makes them easier. If you are writing an email and need to multiple two numbers, with Enzo you can just multiply, no need to launch a separate calculator program. You have to watch the video to appreciate the program, but dozens of other tasks, like capitalizing a sentence, defining a word, checking spelling--all are made easier.

It's not every day a Chicago start-up launches to a praise from Walt Mossberg in the WSJ and interface guru Don Norman (among others). The team of four co-founders is a smart bunch with quite a varied background. One interesting anecdote, the President of Humanized, Aza Raskin, is the son of Jef Raskin, the inventor of the Macintosh.

Dimensions: 4 people people x ~1 year (2006) x $NDA
Funding: Angel funding
Customers: Anyone who uses a computer
Location: Chicago + www.humanized.com

 

ParkWhiz + Aashish Dalal + Jon Thornton

Pwlogo_big ParkWhiz's product is simple, a searchable directory all the available parking in a city. Type in the address of your destination and you will see a map of all the parking options, complete with cost and the hours it is available. But in addition to conventional parking garages, the ParkWhiz directory is open to anyone who has owns a parking spot (or even a driveway) and wants to make it available for rent.

ParkWhiz was started by Aashish Dalal and Jon Thornton. The company began out of Aashish's own frustration finding parking around Chicago. Meanwhile, Jon Thornton was a student of a professor researching ways to improve the discovery of available parking. Aashish discovered this research when exploring the business idea and ParkWhiz was born.

Dimensions: ~5 people x 6 months (2006) x $NDA
Funding: $10K FastPitch competition, Navteq LBS challenge, and private
Customers: Anyone who drives and has trouble finding parking
Location: Chicago + www.parkwhiz.com

PerkSpot + Chris Hill

Perkspot_logoWhen considering a new job offer, do you consider the perks? Discounted health club membership, movie tickets, cell phone plans--PerkSpot makes it easy for companies to offer perks like these to their employees. PerkSpot negotiate the deals with HP, Cingular, Enterprise, TicketsNow and dozens of other partners. They create a branded portal that plugs into your employee intranet so all employees can enjoy the perks.

PerkSpot was started by Chris Hill in 2006. He left his job in private equity after coming up with the idea and has had nice uptake from clients in a relatively short amount of time. Clients like offering perks to their employees, and the discount-offering companies like the unique marketing opportunity.

Dimensions: 2 people people x 1 year (2006) x $NDA
Funding: Owner funded
Customers: Employers, educational institutions, and professional associations
Location: Chicago [Lakeview] + www.perkspot.com

PeopleFilter + Frank Pirri + Kevin Harrison

Peoplefilter_logoIf you have posted a job on Monster or CareerBuilder and been flooded with applicants, then you could use an Applicant Tracking System like PeopleFilter. Their software helps you search, sort, and manage incoming resumes for each job opening. There are a lot of competing companies who have popped up in the past few years, but PeopleFilter's unique spin is to automatically analyzes resumes to determine how good of a fit each person is.

PeopleFilter (formerly Talentology) was founded by Frank Pirri and Kevin Harrison. The two founded PeopleFilter after selling MyPoints.com for $113 million in 2001, a company they were founding members of. The idea for PeopleFilter came from their frustration with hiring while at MyPoints. They raised a round of angel funding from friends and family while signing up customers like US Cellular. They closed a $4.5 million round in January of 2006.

Dimensions: ~45 people people x 6 years (2001) x $2 million in 2005
Funding: $1.2 million angel + $4.5 million VC from Cities Capital Funds (Cincinnati), Velocity Equity Partners (Boston)
Customers: HR departments of large companies
Location: Chicago [Arlington Heights] + www.peoplefilter.com

Motorola + Galvins + Ed Zander

Motorola_logoNow let us praise Motorola. It's the #1 cell phone player in the U.S. (#2 and closing on Nokia worldwide) and 2) the #1 cable box/IP set-up/DVR maker (vs. Cisco's Scientific Atlanta). Combine those two critical consumer platforms with their recent design and innovation leadership, and that makes this Chicago-area giant among the most influential technology companies worldwide - with the likes of Apple and Samsung. Other divisions include communications infrastructure, semiconductors (spun off as Freescale in 2004), and soon more mobile-related content delivery with recent acquisitions of Symbol Technology (enterprise mobility and RFID), Good Technology (mobile computing) and Tut Systems (video encoding and distribution).

Motorola (originally Galvin Mfg) has played a role in many technology developments since the radio - the 'motor' portion of their name came from their car radio product. Lots of mission critical military communications (walkie-talkies), battery, chip innovations as well as early global wireless handsets and six sigma were created at Motorola. It was a family firm run by the Galvin's (Chris is now Chairman of NAVTEQ) until Ed Zander (former COO/President of Sun Microsystems) took the reigns of a turnaround in 2004. 

Dimensions:  70,000 people x 78 years x $41B
Funding: Founders, probably; Public markets. 
Customers: Phone companies, consumers, cable companies, carriers
Location: Chicago [Schaumburg] + www.motorola.com

CohesiveFT + Patrick Kerpan, Alexis Richardson, Craig Heimark, Dwight Koop

Cohesiveft_logoCohesiveFT is trying to make the installation of enterprise software as easy as installing desktop software. Currently, installing an enterprise CRM system is quite a bit more complex than upgrading your copy of Microsoft Outlook. CohesiveFT is simplifying this process by creating "virtual appliances." A virtual appliances is a huge file that is an "image" of a whole computer. Inside this file is an operating system, supporting software, and any special configuration. All the customer has to do is load up the virtual appliance and they have an exact copy of a perfectly setup server.

The team behind CohesiveFT is a seasoned one: Patrick Kerpan (CTO) was previously CTO of Borland after they acquired the company he founded, Bedouin; Alexis Richardson (Bus. Dev) previously founded MetaLogic; Craig Heimark (CEO) is an advisor to OCA Ventures and previously CIO of SBC Warburg; and Dwight Koop (COO) was a founding member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) in addition to a senior manager at Borland, Swiss Bank, and Continental Bank.

Dimensions:  ~10 people x 1 year x TBD
Funding: TBD
Customers: Initial customers are financial institutions
Location: Chicago, Palo Alto, London + www.cohesiveft.com