With Chicago's history as a central trading and banking city, the biggest institutions have inspired a generation of talented, tech-minded financial professionals to build startups that use tech to solve the industry's biggest problems.

Bridge Financial Technology had been around for about 15 years when “founders” Rasheed Hammouda and Sanjay Sharma took over the reins. Both had backgrounds in finance and were looking for the right opportunity to get into fintech. After scoping out the landscape, they came across the Chicago software company and saw an opportunity to pivot.