7 days ago
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The Beat: Why Chicago's women-led startups see less investment
Welcome to Chicago Inno's The Beat, a twice-weekly look at the people, companies and ideas that are shaping Chicago's innovation economy.
The Big One
PitchBook's VC female founders dashboard released earlier this month shows venture-capital deal flow to Chicago companies founded or co-founded by women has dropped precipitously this year. Female founders in Chicago have raised $220M across 28 deals in 2025 thus far. That's significantly down from the $926M raised across 86 deals in 2024.
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Despite that, local investors believe the Chicago startup community has made strides when it comes to keeping women founders in the Windy City, though they say more work still needs to be done.
This year's decline in Chicago is a stark contrast to the rest of the nation, where startups with at least one female founder have raised $78.8B over 1,428 deals, blowing past 2021's record of $68.7B. The first two quarters of 2025 were the best on record for startups with at least one female founder, totaling $51.2B and $27.6B, respectively, according to PitchBook data. That growth was powered by a few massive deals, including OpenAI's record-seeing $40B round in March.
READ MORE: Venture funding for female founders in Chicago plummets despite national surge
More Chicago Inno news to know
A local cross-sector coalition aiming to bring quantum technology to market could be getting a big boost from a federal agency.
Chicago startup Amphix Bio announced it received an orphan drug designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its treatment of acute spinal cord injury.
Chicago named among top US cities for AI readiness
Chicago has been named one of the best-prepared cities when it comes to adopting artificial intelligence technologies.
That's according to The Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank, which published a report Wednesday that calls Chicago one of 28 AI "Star Hubs" across the country.
While not one of the "Superstar" markets for artificial intelligence — reserved for California's San Francisco and San Jose — Chicago is still well positioned to create, apply and harness the power of AI.
READ MORE: Chicago named among top US cities for AI readiness, balancing talent and innovation
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