Funded Startups in Chicago
Across the disclosed Chicago rounds shown (34 of 50), $175M to K1x on 2026-04-16 dwarfs the rest of the top disclosed deals: the next-largest is Braviant H…
Across the disclosed Chicago rounds shown (34 of 50), $175M to K1x on 2026-04-16 dwarfs the rest of the top disclosed deals: the next-largest is Braviant Holdings at $150M (2026-04-07), while multiple other large rounds cluster below $100M (e.g., Renovo Financial $75M on 2026-05-13; JLL Income Property Trust $49M on 2026-06-03). The list is heavily date-concentrated as well: the most recent entry is Fly.io at $23M on 2026-07-22, while the oldest is Funny Water on 2026-03-04, spanning just under five months. Sector and stage signals also cluster: AI shows up in repeated entries (e.g., Empirical Security $25M on 2026-07-20; SyntaxBio $14M on 2026-06-21; SteveKnows $18M on 2026-04-20), and “Series Unknown” is a common classification alongside named stages like Seed and Series A.
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Frequently asked
Which disclosed rounds are outliers in size, and what are the closest comparisons?
K1x’s $175M (2026-04-16) is the largest disclosed amount, followed by Braviant Holdings at $150M (2026-04-07). The next tier drops to $100M (NinjaTrader on 2026-06-17) and $75M (Renovo Financial on 2026-05-13), making the top two materially larger than the rest of the disclosed stack.
Do the biggest deals cluster around a particular time window?
Most of the largest disclosed rounds fall in April–June: K1x $175M (2026-04-16), Braviant Holdings $150M (2026-04-07), Renovo Financial $75M (2026-05-13), JLL Income Property Trust $49M (2026-06-03), and NinjaTrader $100M (2026-06-17). Later in the window, Empirical Security reaches $25M (2026-07-20), but the top-of-list amounts remain concentrated earlier.
How much of the list is “Series Unknown,” and how does that affect interpretability of stage trends?
Sixteen of the 50 rows are undisclosed by amount, and “Series Unknown” appears across the table alongside explicitly labeled rounds (e.g., Empirical Security is Series A on 2026-07-20; SyntaxBio is Series A on 2026-06-21; SteveKnows is Seed on 2026-04-20). That combination means stage mix analysis should rely on the labeled entries rather than the full 50-row set.
Which sector shows up repeatedly, and what are examples across different dates and sizes?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the clearest multi-entry cluster: Empirical Security ($25M, 2026-07-20), Rent Butter ($3M, 2026-05-29), SteveKnows ($18M, 2026-04-20), and StratiqAI ($100K, 2026-04-01) all appear in the AI-marked rows. The disclosed amounts range from the $100K floor (StratiqAI, 2026-04-01) up to the $25M range (Empirical Security, 2026-07-20), indicating AI activity across both small and large deals.
What does the disclosed-versus-undisclosed pattern imply for diligence on deal sizing?
Among disclosed amounts, the smallest is $100K (StratiqAI on 2026-04-01), while the largest disclosed amount is $175M (K1x on 2026-04-16). However, 16 of 50 rows are undisclosed by amount (e.g., Sabanto on 2026-07-14 and Attune on 2026-06-24), so any view of “how big” the average deal is will be sensitive to selection toward the 34 disclosed entries.
Where are the temporal edges for the 50-row window, and do the largest amounts align with those edges?
The window spans from 2026-03-04 (oldest: Funny Water, $5M) to 2026-07-22 (most recent: Fly.io, $23M). The largest disclosed amounts do not sit at the edges; instead, the top of the range is concentrated mid-window, led by K1x on 2026-04-16 ($175M) and Braviant Holdings on 2026-04-07 ($150M).
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