I live in Chicago and thought it would be interesting to get some perspective on startups in the area. What is your company? When did you start? Where in the Chicago area are you located?
If you are on the north side, north shore, at NU or anywhere near Evanston, come check out <a href="http://coworkingevanston.com/" rel="nofollow">http://coworkingevanston.com/</a> It got started because there have been a bunch of startups and indie devs/designers working out of coffeeshops and home offices in the area and there wasn't any central point to get together and collaborate anywhere north of lakeview.<p>We started hosting the Monday Jelly Chicago meetups this week and had a packed house. Next monday following Jelly some of the people here are starting a Startup Evanston meetup <a href="http://www.meetup.com/Startup-Evanston/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meetup.com/Startup-Evanston/</a> One of the members here also hosts the well-attended monthly Chicago Web Pros meetup in Evanston <a href="http://www.meetup.com/chicago-web-pros/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meetup.com/chicago-web-pros/</a><p>The startup I'm with is technically based in San Francisco, but I'm actively looking to find another developer in Chicago. If you are a Chicago-area Ruby developer, my email is in my profile.
Groupon (grew out of ThePoint.com, 2008-ish?, in the old Monty Ward building), GrubHub, EveryBlock (we started in 2007 in the Loop, now in Ravenswood), Threadless (now in the West Loop), to name a few ...
Kadavy, Inc., it's just me, and started as a UI consultancy in 2008. Now it's a media company.<p>I'm writing a book on design <a href="http://designforhackers.com" rel="nofollow">http://designforhackers.com</a><p>Based on blog posts at <a href="http://kadavy.net" rel="nofollow">http://kadavy.net</a><p>I live in Lincoln Park at Clark & Fullerton, which I think is a perfect place for a one man startup. Very walkable.<p>I meet with other entrepreneurs every wednesday to cowork at a cafe <a href="http://jellychicago.com" rel="nofollow">http://jellychicago.com</a><p>I moved here <i>from</i> SF, entirely by my own volition. Yes, for real.
<a href="http://giveforward.com" rel="nofollow">http://giveforward.com</a> We're in the Loop now but moving to Wicker Park next month. We launched in 2008. Raised a round in 2011. Things are bueno.
Launched <a href="http://www.BeyondThePedway.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.BeyondThePedway.com</a> 2 years ago to cover the creative companies in Chicago, and later pivoted to focus on creative entrepreneurs here in Chicago as well as all over.<p>Launching a community for parent entrepreneurs called <a href="http://www.NaptimeEntrepreneurs.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.NaptimeEntrepreneurs.com</a> at the beginning of May.
It's not a startup, but there is a fantastic monthly meetup in Chicago for people who like to build stuff for the web (mainly developers/designers). Basically, a lot of awesome people go to a bar, hang out, and talk about things that we all enjoy. Check it out: <a href="http://chicago-concat.gathers.us" rel="nofollow">http://chicago-concat.gathers.us</a>
Why is there no General Assembly/Hacker Dojo in Chicago? Is there a demand for it at all?<p>The culture in Chicago seems totally different, would there even be a demand for that sort of thing?
<a href="http://www.pvpower.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.pvpower.com</a>. PVPower's flagship product, SolarBear is a marketplace that brings together the products, process, customers and capital needed for widespread adoption of residential solar power.<p>Founded in 2009, raised a seed round in 2009, raising an A round right now, closing in May.<p>CEO - Dan Kuthy
COO - Nick Yecke
Spatial Bytes (<a href="http://spatialbytes.com" rel="nofollow">http://spatialbytes.com</a>) -- my lame old blog. As of Dec. 2010 I'm an official business in Chicago. Some ideas but no prototypes. For now, it's just consulting side gigs. I have another business in planning as an LLC with a prototype complete. I'm in the Hyde Park neighborhood.
Future Simple - <a href="http://www.futuresimple.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.futuresimple.com</a>
Disrupting small business software. Just raised $1.1M from great investors in Chicago. Building some crazy things now...
Spending our time around Lincoln Park. About to get a cozy place downtown soon.
I started <a href="http://www.onedayonejob.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.onedayonejob.com/</a> in Connecticut in 2007, but moved to Chicago in 2008. I'm in River North, but work out of a home office since it's only me for now (but the business is profitable!).
<a href="http://www.parkwhiz.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.parkwhiz.com</a> - We started in 2006, when it seemed like TechCocktail was the only startup community in town. Ended up bootstrapping the company, and we recently opened an office in Roscoe Village.
<a href="http://www.raydash.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.raydash.com</a> - We provide live-video on your website.<p>BTW, who is going to the hackathon, todady, <a href="http://www.nuhackathon.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nuhackathon.com/</a>
Going to throw my company, CrowdSavvy into this, though we are early, early stage. Been working on it since mid-2010. Launched to public beta in 2011.<p><a href="http://www.crowdsavvy.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.crowdsavvy.com</a>
I am working on Emulsion in Chicago, which will allow photographers to create beautiful, simple portfolios in about 15 minutes. <a href="http://emulsion.me" rel="nofollow">http://emulsion.me</a>
<a href="http://www.cashierlive.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.cashierlive.com</a> - We provide SaaS point-of-sale to retailers. We launched last February, and we're working in River North.
We started <a href="http://www.joystickers.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.joystickers.com</a> in 2010. We're based in Logan Square.<p>Would love to get a meetup together soon.
<a href="http://evolyte.com" rel="nofollow">http://evolyte.com</a> in the loop on Wabash/Lake. We've been autotuning the internet since 1994. The G Funk Era.
Also - check out this list:
<a href="http://www.quora.com/What-tech-startups-are-there-in-Chicago" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/What-tech-startups-are-there-in-Chicago</a>
<a href="http://feefighters.com" rel="nofollow">http://feefighters.com</a>
We're in the West Loop, at <a href="http://sandboxindustries.com/" rel="nofollow">http://sandboxindustries.com/</a>. Been around for a couple of years. Raised a note a year ago and a seed round a couple of months ago. Things are going great.