10 Chicago Startups We're Watching This Summer

It's been a busy 2015 so far with tons of Chicago startups launching products, raising money, and continuing to grow and disrupt industries. To get a sense for who's been making moves and who we're keeping our eye on this summer, we've put together a list of 10 Chicago startups to watch heading into the midway point of the year. Some of these companies have developed a presence in Chicago for several years, and others are just out of college, but all of these startups are poised for growth and worth paying attention to this summer. Options Away  Dubbed the "next big thing in online travel" by OCA Ventures, Options Away is changing how people buy airline tickets. Launched in 2012, Options Away allows you to lock-in airfare before you pay, so you can hold a lower price before you're 100% sure you're ready to pull the trigger. Options Away lets you secure a plane ticket for a certain number of days before paying the fare. You pay a fee to hold the rate--between $4 and $50--and then log back on when you're ready to book. If you cancel the trip, the hold expires and all you've lost is the fee. If the price drops, you pay the lower rate. Options Away raised a $3.5 million Series A in March and recently won the Hightower Apex shark tank competition. Nusiki Nusiki wants to create a better social network for music and officially launched this year down at SXSW. Founder Ben Hewitt said Nusiki is like if "Instagram and Spotify had a kid," as it allows you to post songs directly in your feed, creating a better social experience. So rather than digging through old emails or text messages--or sifting through a cluttered Facebook or Twitter timeline--to find a song link, Nusiki is a platform for you and your friends to easily see and share the music you like. Nusiki was a hit at SXSW, and could be a startup poised for big things in Chicago. Avant It's been a few years since Chicago's seen a startup quite like Avant. In fact, Avant is the city's fastest-growing startup since Groupon, raising over $1 billion in funding (equity and debt combined) since it launched a few short years ago. Avant, which uses machine-learning algorithms to help people more easily get a loan, has more than 200,000 customers and has lent over $1 billion in loans. Simply put: Avant is on a tear. The company said it plans to hire 300 more employees in Chicago--bringing its total to over 1,000--and it just signed a lease at a new 80,000 square foot headquarters. And to top it off, Forbes named the company as one of the next billion dollar startups to watch. Raise For as quickly as Avant has grown, Chicago-startup Raise seems to be right behind in terms of generating momentum. Raise, which scored a $56 million Series B in January, has created a marketplace for people to buy and sell unused gift cards. NEA, who funded the round, called Raise "one of the fastest-growing companies we’ve ever seen." Founded in 2013, Raise did $100 million in revenue in just 14 months after it launched. And like Avant, Forbes also named Raise as one of the next possible billion-dollar startups. FlipWord Built by University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign computer science graduate student Thomas Reese and CS undergraduate Joseph Milla, FlipWord makes learning a language as easy as surfing the web. And actually, browsing websites is exactly how his technology works. FlipWord is a web application that changes certain words on any webpage you are browsing to whatever language you are learning. For example, if you're trying to learn French, the word "amis" would show up instead of "friend" on your Facebook page. This passive language learning tool translates more words as you go, making learning a language part of your daily routine. And the startup just won $15,000 in seed funding from UIUC's Cozad venture challenge. Maestro Speaking of killer university-born startups, Maestro, which launched out of the University of Chicago, won $70,000 from the school's New Venture Challenge last month. Maestro is like a Keurig, but for food. Users place pods of vegetables, proteins, and grains into Maestro's three chambers that boil, steam, and roast the recipe via a QR code printed on the pod. The healthy meals are ready in under 30 minutes. Winning the New Venture Challenge is no small feat. The challenge was named a top 5 business accelerator programs in the US and has launched successful tech companies like GrubHub and Braintree. You can now add Maestro to that exclusive club, and they'll be a company to watch as the product develops beyond its prototype. Charlie App  Charlie App has developed a foolproof way to make sure you're never unprepared for a meeting. By syncing with your calendar, Charlie identifies everyone you're about to see in your next meeting and sends you a one-pager of information on each person. Charlie pulls from thousands of sources like LinkedIn, Facebook, company websites and news articles to give you talking points and common interests of those in the meeting. Charlie, which  raised $1.75 million last October, just recently unveiled its iOS app and a paid version to give you even more detailed information. Charlie, which has been one of the most upvoted products ever on Product Hunt, could be in line for a nice little exit if the right buyer comes along. SportsLock Chicago startup SportsLock is proving there's room in the fantasy sports space beyond DraftKings and Fan Duel. SportsLock, which just closed a $5 million Series A this month, combines the betting and real-money component of daily leagues with the social element of season-long platforms. Packaged in a NCAA-style bracket format, SportsLock lets users set a dollar amount, join a league, draft players and compete head-to-head with others. SportsLock's investors include Robert Dupuy, the former COO of Major League Baseball, who spotted the startup at a Chicago tech fair and said he believed it was a "unique product that would have universal appeal." NuCurrent  Launched in 2009 out of Northwestern University, NuCurrent has become an innovator in wireless power antenna technology, charging devices like cell phones and wearables without having to plug them in. The company raised a $3.48 million Series A in October and recently signed a deal with Molex Industries. In April, NuCurrent was named the top company on the 2015 Crain’s Chicago Business Eureka Index, a measure of Chicago’s most proficient producers of patents. NuCurrent filed more patents last year per 100 employees than other company in Chicago. And in May, the company scored a big-time hire in Glenn Riese, a former Motorola Mobility engineer who helped launch Motorola's RAZR and Droid products. Riese was named NuCurrent's director of product engineering. NETenergy  Energy storage startup NETenergy had a busy 2015, winning $100,000 at the Clean Energy Challenge and $40,000 from UChicago's New Venture Challenge. NETenergy has created a thermal battery that works like an electrical battery, but instead stores thermal energy. By storing  “cold energy,” NETenergy says it can save building owners 30 percent or more on energy usage and reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent. It's Thermal Energy Storage helps save customers on their utility bills, allowing them to shift their A/C energy consumption to off-peak hours. The company has an impressive advisory board, which includes Martin Eberhard, the first CEO and co-founder of Tesla. Image via creative commons