3 days ago
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The Beat: Meet the Fire Awards Blazer winners for 2025
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
This year's Chicago Inno Fire Awardees spanned fintech, quantum technology, health and biotech, and robotics.
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The 25 ventures — sorted into five categories — collectively have raised millions of dollars (in some cases hundreds of millions), expanded their reach, launched new funds and otherwise made a name for themselves in the local tech scene in 2025.
Now we're ready to recognize the Blazers, the standouts in each of the Fire Awards categories that truly shaped tech and innovation in Chicago over the past year.
READ MORE: Meet the Fire Awards Blazer winners for 2025
More Inno news to know
Pharmaceutical giant AbbVie is making a $195M investment to expand its manufacturing capacity in North Chicago.
is making a $195M investment to expand its manufacturing capacity in North Chicago. Chicago startup ReloShare was featured in the No. 2 spot on this year's Inc. 5000 list.
Portal Innovations launches $100M fund
Chicago is ready to take its next step forward as a global life-sciences hub.
That's at least what local venture-capital firm Portal Innovations is betting.
The firm is launching a $100M fund geared primarily toward pre-seed and seed-stage biotech startups.
The fund comes as life-sciences funding is having its moment in Chicago. While venture-capital funding for life sciences companies nationally is slightly off last year's pace, the numbers locally tell a different story.
READ MORE: Chicago life-sciences funding surges as VC firm unveils $100M fund
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