M25

Last week, we wrapped up another incredible #ClubM25 Summit! It’s always a blast to bring together our M25 founders and hundreds of top-tier investors from across the country. With nearly 1,000 double-opt-in meetings over the course of two days, the connections and opportunities created were nothing short of remarkable. 🎉 Every year, the #ClubM25 Summit is one of the Midwest’s biggest VC gatherings. This year it was held right in the heart of Chicago, alongside Millennium Park and Lake Michigan. The highlights? A rooftop happy hour, a ping-pong-packed afterparty and closing out at Big Mini Putt Club on Thursday night. Oh, and did we mention the founder and investor dinners? 🍽️ #InvestintheMidwest A huge shoutout to our amazing sponsors—Banc of California, Gunderson Dettmer, Insperity, JobsOhio and Pasquesi Partners LLC—for making this event a huge success! Victor Gutwein Mike Asem Abhinaya Konduru Leandro Bedolla Katie Birge Arianna Thornton Sam Cavender, CPA Ruth Brungard

Who logged the most Midwest miles this year? What moments defined our 2024? From growing our portfolio and hosting #ClubM25 events to connecting with founders and communities across the region, it’s been a year full of milestones. We’ve wrapped it all up in our annual Year in Review—our very own Midwest highlight reel. Read the blog here: https://lnkd.in/gKju5gPw

🚀 Exciting news! Super Dispatch is thrilled to announce Matt Bradley as our new CEO. In partnership with Bek Abdullayev as our Founder and Executive Chairman, with Matt's visionary leadership, we're ready to embark on the next phase of transformation for the industry leading auto transport platform. Buckle up for an incredible journey ahead! 🎉 Read more about the Super Dispatch leadership changes here: https://bit.ly/49sQfTc #LeadershipAnnouncement #AutoTransport #Transformation

Exciting news from the team at Loop! 🎉 Learn more about their acquisition of Wonderment below:

This week, Katie Birge and I hosted our annual M25 Indy Women in VC and VC-ish Brunch, bringing together over 20 incredible women in venture capital and adjacent industries for a morning filled with conversation, community and plenty of caffeine. A huge thank you to Gutwein Law for sponsoring this year’s gathering! And, of course, we couldn’t pass up the chance to highlight one of Indy’s latest food gems—Borage out in Speedway.

Exciting update - our equity crowdfunding campaign (https://lnkd.in/gNc7jV_n) for The Cumin Club has been off to a brilliant start. In just 10 days, we have raised $136K from 90 of our customers, friends, family and community. If you haven't yet, please consider supporting our mission to reintroduce authentic Indian food, from India, to the world. #indianfood #startuplife #crowdfunding

We’ve never done this... But now we can. Last Black Friday, Chipp had just launched. We didn’t have much to offer. 🙃 Now, Chipp makes it easy to build a suite of AI agents. Our Team plan takes this power even further. With Team, you can build collaboratively with your colleagues and clients. Then connect your AI tools to other software to save time and work smarter. So let’s try this... A Black Friday and Cyber Monday special! 🚨 Until the end of Monday, sign up for a Team plan and get 40% off with code CHIPPTEAM. 🚨 You can then build agents with any of the top LLMs- ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. White label everything (including emails), add GDPR compliance, and build out your AI business. If you've been want to launch that AI consultancy or agency, this is the perfect first step. If you are trying to get AI into your school or business, this is the perfect first step. We’re not planning to do this again any time soon so grab your Team account now. And honestly, this is big. If you go annual you'll save $400! 👀 Upgrade here: https://lnkd.in/gPZdMRrZ -Scott

Chicago-based WithMe, Inc. is hiring for several remote-friendly positions! #ClubM25 🖨️ SVP of Sales ☕️ Chief of Staff 🖨️ Lead/Principal Software Engineer ☕️ Multifamily Sales Professionals 🖨️ Sales Directors ☕️ Business Development Sales Executives Explore the job descriptions and apply via the Midwest Startups job board: https://lnkd.in/gE363tWa

This week, Abhinaya Konduru and Katie Birge were in St. Louis for one of our final M25 & Friends Happy Hours of 2024! We kicked off Thursday morning with a coffee hour, reconnecting with so many #ClubM25 founders and friends of the fund.☕ A special shoutout to Customers Bank for sponsoring the event. Thank you to everyone who joined us—it’s always great to see the STL startup community thriving!

The McDermond Center was busy last evening as the DePauw Entrepreneurship Group (DEG) put on their Fall Pitch Competition. DEG co-presidents Ezekiel Bramble and Ellen Gardner facilitated, Dave Bittner from the West Central Indiana Small Business Development Center (Indiana SBDC) moderated, and McDermond staff Assistant Director Amanda Dorsett and Director Steve Fouty kept things moving smothly behind the scenes. But the stars of the night were the amazing judges and the student entrepreneurs! Our experienced judges were: Katie Birge '08, VP of Platform at M25; R. J. Talyor,'02 founder of Backstroke; Ben Hizer, CEO of Luminary AI Technologies; and Michael Leonard, Associate at North Coast Ventures. Our talented student winners: First place went to Hanan Tariq; second place to Samip Devkota; and third place to the team of Jadyn Lock and Madelyn Reinhardt! The judges were so impressed with the pitches, that they also gave honorable mention awards out to these three outstanding student entrepreneurs: Ben Schroeder, William Cramer and the team of Quan Tran and Ngoc Le. #pitchcompetition #entrepreneurship #depauwu #goldwithin #startupideas