With plenty going on in the Chicago tech scene, here are some of the stories from last week that you may have missed. This is the Built In Chicago weekly refresh.
SpotOn raised $125M. SpotOn sells hardware and software that helps businesses handle point-of-sale transactions. The company has achieved enough success in this space that it has also branched out to offer other types of merchant services — from e-commerce to appointments, marketing and more. This new funding will help the company grow its Bay Area headquarters, as well as its Chicago-based team. Its valuation has now reached $1.8 billion. [Built In Chicago]
P33 launches ‘Come Back to Move Forward’ campaign. The civic group is on a mission to make Chicago a world-class tech hub. Its latest effort continuing that push — a digital marketing campaign launched last week — is targeting 100,000 mid-career tech professionals who have left Chicago but still have some ties to the area, and urging them to consider a return to the Windy City. [Crain’s Chicago Business]
Chicago Tech Quote of the Week
Halo Investing plans for growth, 100 hires. Halo Investing has created a platform that allows financial advisors to purchase secured notes — a protective form of investment that was previously only available to the very wealthy. After a year of impressive growth, Halo Investing plans to expand from 120 employees to 200-250 by the end of the year. It anticipates hitting the 500-1,000 employee range in the next 18-24 months. [Built In Chicago]
Obie raised $10.7M. This new Series A funding will help the company hire more people, as well as bring its product to market after announcing its availability in all 50 states. Obie has built a platform that helps landlords find insurance for the property they rent out. Its tech-forward approach allows the company to do things like provide instant quotes and use data to bring down premium costs when possible. [Built In Chicago]
Relativity acquired Text IQ. Text IQ uses unsupervised machine learning, graphical modeling, social network analysis, natural language processing and deep learning to identify sensitive enterprise data. This technology will be especially helpful to e-discovery software provider Relativity, because it will help Relativity customers during the legal privilege review process. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. [Relativity]
SDI Presence opened its innovation hub on the South Side. This will help support the IT consulting company’s virtual and on-site operations. The company provides a variety of IT services, including advanced application and infrastructure support, legacy infrastructure migration, cyber security and cloud services. It’s also partnering with colleges and local organizations to hire people from the South Side community. Additionally, the MBE (Minority Business Enterprise)-certified company just landed a significant investment from Abry Partners. [SDI Presence]
Tiv launched from stealth with $3.5M seed round. Tiv wants to be the payments platform for gamers. It offers a virtual and physical credit card that people can use to pay for gaming-related purchases. Once they do, cardholders rack up rewards that can be used elsewhere. The company was founded in April of 2020 and has five employees, but it’s looking to double its headcount in the next year. [Crunchbase]
