Graphic highlighting Chicago startups, featuring a map of the United States with Illinois highlighted and a location pin over Chicago that includes a city skyline within the pin. The words "full scale" and "Chicago startups

Top Chicago Startups

As one of the largest cities in the US, it’s no surprise Chicago is paving the way for new opportunities in the startup community. Let’s learn more about Chicago’s growing economy and the top Chicago startups dominating their tech industry.    

Chicago is staking its claim as a leading entrepreneurial hub in the US. The City that Works is indeed working towards a brighter future. Home to 35 Fortune 500 companies and more than 100 business incubator and accelerator programs, Chicago is a prime soil to plant investments.

The launching of its P33 program, an initiative to boost  Chicago’s tech ecosystem, gave investors even more reasons to shell out funding.

Whether it’s a large number of potential customers or a wide talent resource, Chicago is undeniably turning into a hotspot for businesses. Let’s get to know some of the popular Chicago startups stirring up the business scene.

Top Chicago Startups 

From advanced healthcare services to cutting-edge software, Chicago houses a diverse portfolio of startups. Here are some Chicago businesses making a big splash in their respective industries.

bloXroute

bloxroute
Top Chicago Startups 1

If you’re familiar with investments and cryptocurrency, you may have already heard of the term “blockchain”. Blockchain is a data structure that stores, protects, organizes, and decentralizes transactional records.

With the said, blockchains can’t fully scale because communicating their current state is time-consuming. Consequently, the network’s slow communication limits the blocks’ size and frequency which prevents scalability. But luckily, there are ways to speed things up. 

bloXroute is a blockchain distribution network that scales all cryptocurrencies to thousands of on-chain transactions per second. It allows the network to communicate faster.

Clearstep

Clearstep
Top Chicago Startups 2

In dire times, the best people step up. Leading the steps towards modern healthcare, Clearstep is a platform that matches patients to the best in-network care. It’s a screening tool that assesses a patient’s case and connects them with healthcare professionals.

During the pandemic outbreak, Clearstep expanded its network reach by working together with BayCare to launch a COVID19 screening tool. They plan to continue their collaboration to solve more issues related to the pandemic. Clearly, there’s still a lot to look forward to in this startup’s future.    

Cohesion

Cohesion
Top Chicago Startups 3

Cohesion seamlessly connects critical building systems with the human ecosystem. The company streamlines and simplifies management by increasing the owner’s asset value and connecting tenants and operators to deliver actionable insights.

Cohesion’s increases real estate portfolio value with connected systems, enhanced experiences, and actionable insights. The Building Experience App integrates building systems and provides smart controls. This improves tenant experiences while delivering actionable insights for commercial real estate.

Forager

Forager
Top Chicago Startups 4

In the US, domestic freight spending goes up to $557 billion worth of goods and services. These are often exchanges in the borders of Mexico and Canada. Yet, with the exponential growth of exchanged goods, shipping has always been an issue. At least until Forager stepped in. 

Forager is leading the tech advancement of cross-border logistics. The startup combines modern tech tools with decades of industry experience, coming up with innovative shipping solutions. Forager solves the issue of international shippers and carriers in providing seamless transportation solutions for customers.

Fyllo

Fyllo
Top Chicago Startups 5

When it comes to selling controversial products like Cannabis, advertising is a real headache. Most marketers have to comply with many restrictions and limitations in their advertising campaign, and quite often become unsuccessful in launching it. Fortunately, there is a startup that can help.  

Fyllo’s proprietary technologies provide solutions for cannabis brands and online publishers to make their campaigns more effective. It uses Cannabrain technology to ingest and interrogate billions of data points so brands can safely create and execute their advertising campaigns. The technology also enables publishers to monetize their ad inventory.    

Honest Game

Honest Game
Top Chicago Startups 6

It’s a tough game for athletes on and off the field, maintaining both their game prowess and grades. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has stringent rules for academic eligibility for athletes.

To help athletes keep track and meet their academic requirements, Honest Game developed a database system to assist them. The technology is designed to automate academic eligibility with verifiable academic data. Through the platform, athletes can access their records efficiently. 

Livly

Livly
Top Chicago Startups 7

Moving into a new place is already a big undertaking, let alone all the paperwork and errands residents have to go through to settle in. Luckily, there’s a solution to all the tedious tasks involved in dealing with resident amenities.

Livly offers a no-cost digital amenity that improves resident experience through a mobile app and an online community hub. The platform is used to activate new digital experiences and revenue streams for buildings

Mavely

Mavely
Top Chicago Startups 8

Your customers can become your brand advocates. This is what Mavely had in mind when they gamified the shopping experience. The platform seeks to address the issue of rising customer acquisition costs (CAC) for brands by incentivizing the shopping experience.

Mavely hits two birds with one stone by giving benefits to both the brand and its customers. Mavely’s technology rewards customers for shopping and referring to the brand, a company can drastically save up on their CAC.

Ocient

Ocient
Top Chicago Startups 9

In the technological age, the amount of data being produced is rapidly increasing. New technologies bring about a whole boatload of new data to work with. Businesses need to keep up in analyzing data to guide their operations. And this is exactly what Ocient wants to address.  

Ocient helps companies by building a database and analytics software that can efficiently analyze trillions of rows of data. With the amount of big data being produced each day, Ocient wants to help startups keep up in reading and understanding large datasets.

Quillbot

QuillBot
Top Chicago Startups 10

Writer’s block is no joke! QuillBot is making it its mission to make writing as painless as possible by introducing a state-of-the-art AI paraphraser. The tool functions as a full-sentence thesaurus that people can use to craft sentences, improve fluency, and stimulate their creative juices.

The AI writing tool is chiefly targeting college students and non-native professionals in better articulating their thoughts on complex topics. The writing assistant serves to not only improve the content structure but also develop the overall coherence and clarity of the text.

Rheaply

Rheaply
Top Chicago Startups 11

The number of assets wasted and locked away in warehouses and storage rooms is staggeringly large. Because of the lack of visibility on these idle assets establishments are wasting away a good chunk of their resources. This is why the visibility of these things is a must.

Rheaply offers an asset exchange platform that allows clients to monitor all their idle equipment within and outside their storage. The idea is to simply make all the world’s resources more discoverable and transferrable. 

Clients can sell, rent, or even donate the items in their storage efficiently through the platform. Rheaply is taking out items in the storage room and transporting them to the hands that need them. 

RiseKit

RiseKit
Top Chicago Startups 12

Unemployment in the US is an ongoing battle, especially after the COVID19 pandemic. Recovering from job loss is no easy feat. But fortunately, some people can help curb the unemployment rate.

RiseKit helps out unemployed individuals by connecting them to careers, training, and resources. Likewise, they assist employers and grantmakers find suitable workers for their company. RiseKit has about 300 corporate and nonprofit partners listing their job openings on the platform. This allows job seekers to conveniently find positions that match their skills.

Route

Route
Top Chicago Startups 13

It’s challenging to clean up a place when you’re not familiar with its surroundings. But in truth, there’s real potential to speed things up when it comes to delivering cleaning services. This is what Route is for.

Route is a business management tool for the commercial cleaning industry. This data-driven platform allows proper walkthroughs to be digitized and data to be accessible to everyone in real-time. Route offers efficient workflow guidance for employees so they can get a better picture of the place they’re cleaning.  

SwitchedOn Training App

SwitchedOn Training App
Top Chicago Startups 14

Did you know neuroscience can amp up individual training? Brett Johnson wants to demonstrate this in his SwitchedOn Training app for athletes. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to be creative in developing our skills within the safety of our homes. But training isn’t easy when there’s no coach to rely on. Hence, you must put in much of the work by yourself.

The SwitchedOn Training App is designed to optimize your physical and cognitive performance using Perceptual Cognitive Motor (PCM). It works by providing randomized cues in colors, numbers, and arrows associated with different actions or movements.

In short, you pretty much develop your mind-body connection and enhance your play reaction through stimulation.

UpKey

UpKey
Top Chicago Startups 15

In a competitive market, job-seeking is difficult for candidates who do not have a large network of allies in organizations. Too often, recruiters limit their talent acquisition to certain schools and certain groups of candidates, leaving out a large chunk of the talent pool.

Upkey works to level the recruitment field by creating a system that can better represent candidates. The tool profiles the candidate’s best characteristics and gathers critical recommendations from their peers.

These are then represented in a convenient chart to allow recruiters to easily assess the candidate’s skills, talent, interests, and proficiencies.

Join the Startup Scene

Now that we’ve gotten to know the best Chicago startups, it’s safe to conclude that it indeed has a rich startup culture. So, whether you’re looking to join the top startups in Chicago, or are inspired to innovate in your hometown, here are some points to ponder on.  

You need experts to help you tackle your entrepreneurial endeavor. A business builds its foundation on the people it hires; hence, you need a good team on your side. Likewise, you also need complete resources to get things moving. You must secure your finances, buy equipment, and manage your inventory.

Now, these things can be overwhelming if you’re a new entrepreneur with very limited experience. Fortunately, you can get guidance from a company that specializes in launching startups.

Full Scale can help you build your team and provide you with the resources for your project. We have seasoned developers, project managers, QA specialists, and more ready to be deployed. We’ll handle all the tedious processes while you focus on developing your core operations. Interested? Talk to us!