New Salesforce office could bring 5,000 new jobs to Chicago
No, that is not a typo. Salesforce, the San Francisco-based CRM solutions provider, is in negotiations over a new office in the Wolf Point South building by the Chicago River that could host up to 5,000 new hires, according to reports by Crain’s. The projected office would be 500,000 square feet, with room to grow. That projection is triple the size of Salesforce’s current Chicago office, which holds the majority of Salesforce’s 1,000-person Chicago staff. The company is reportedly still negotiating with city officials over the building specifications and company’s potential use of public space. [Crain’s]
Building Block, Inc. introduces real estate to blockchain
Architectural firm Building Block, Inc. announced it will be the first North American real estate investment trust that allows for blockchain investment and integration. This initiative will create opportunities for the Building Block REIT to increase efficiency in shareholder communication via immediate and automatic execution of things like direct dividend disbursement, secure user voting and smart contract functions. Chief Marketing Officer Bruce Masterson said investors will benefit through dramatic increases in the speed of settlement verification and the reduction of legal fees. [PR Newswire]
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Chicago tech is making national headlines this week
Food delivery marketplace Grubhub was featured on Fortune’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies List 2018. The company made the list last year as well, but between then and now, it grew its user base by 70 percent from 9.2 million to 15.6 million. Grubhub acquired payments and loyalty company LevelUp in June, which will allow the company to expand its market reach even further. [Fortune]
This year’s annually published Innovative Cities Index ranked the Windy City 11th in its top 500 list of the most innovative cities in the world. The city also ranked 5th among the most innovative cities in the United States, placing just above Dallas-Fort Worth and below Boston. Tokyo took the global number one spot. [Innovative Cities Index]
DialogTech, a Chicago-based analytics firm providing companies with data on marketing phone calls, was dubbed Best Overall Marketing Analytics Platform by MarTech Breakthrough. Part of the Tech Breakthrough Awards, MarTech Breakthrough works to recognize elite companies, products and technologies changing the face of the sales and marketing industry. [PR Newswire]
Senseair brings fresh air to St. Charles
Senseair, a developer of technology used to sense air and gas particles, recently announced that St. Charles, IL will be the home of its new North American headquarters. The company specializes in creating compact, wireless devices that monitor air quality and sense contaminants. Its new Midwestern home will house sales, marketing, technical support, order fulfillment and customer service teams that will allow the company to scale businesses to more American customers. [PR Newswire]
Rippleshot raises $1.5 million
Rippleshot, a fraud analytics firm that works with banks and credit unions to prevent payment card fraud, recently raised $1.5 million in funding. According to a statement provided by the company, the new funding will be used to scale with “two major strategic partners.” In February 2017, the company received $2.75 million in investments from Chicago-based KDWC and Madison, WI-based CMFG Ventures. That funding was used for product development on the company’s Sonar platform, which provides card issuers with insights into the range of fraud risk associated with customers’ cards, according to a spokesperson from the company. [FormDs]
New hires at project44 and Fusion Management
Following a $35 million funding round and new office announcement earlier this year, logistics technology provider project44 announced the addition of four new members to its roster of leaders.
Andrew Grygiel, former senior VP of marketing at Uptake, was announced as project44’s chief marketing officer. He will bring decades of experience from SaaS solutions, data integration, cloud technology and data management to his new role. He will lead the company’s brand strategy, global integrated marketing, demand generation and corporate communications.
The company’s new VP of people is Jeanette Johnson, a former VP of people at SPINS, a data firm servicing natural, organic and specialty retail product providers. She has 20 years of experience scaling human resource infrastructure, and will be in charge of optimizing the company’s recruitment strategies as they hire an additional 200 staff, as well as promoting wellness and values within the company.
Mateen Khadir was named vice president of product and will be tasked with expanding and diversifying project44’s product portfolio while supervising the evolution of existing products. Khadir specializes in B2B SaaS product leadership, organizational structure and scalability. He spent over 15 years in product leadership positions at Accenture, Relativity and Oracle-Textura before coming to project44.
Vernon O’Donnell is project44’s new chief customer officer. He will develop and implement new strategies to further engage customers, allowing them to work more efficiently. He was previously chief customer officer at sports data company STATS and has a background working in user-focused roles within growing tech companies. [Business Wire]
Cloud-based risk management and business continuity software provider Fusion Risk Management announced the appointment of Jim Stewart as senior vice president and chief financial officer. Stewart previous worked as CFO at Edmentum. He has 20 years of financial management experience working in a wide variety industries within the tech field. In his new role, Stewart will oversee Fusion’s accounting, financial planning and analysis, as well as business operations. [Business Wire]
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