What is the blend in Chicago’s tech ecosystem?
To try to answer that question, Chicago:Blend gathered data from 71 Chicago venture firms and over 100 startups backed by Chicago’s VCs. We asked: how many women and underrepresented minorities work at venture firms? How many work in venture-backed startups? What is their level of seniority?
With better data, we hope firms and startups alike can make better decisions that will shape the future of their companies – and our ecosystem.
Chicago VCs by the Numbers
The data was collected in September and October, 2018. The dataset includes 348 employees from 70 Chicago based firms that have made at least one venture investment within the last year. These firms include venture funds that are $5MM+, family offices, angel investment networks and a handful of other investors that do venture deals.
Overall by Gender
Overall by Ethnicity
“Men make up 75% of Chicago’s venture industry. And it’s 86% white.”
Executive Leadership:
Men hold the majority of executive level (86%) and investor (82%) roles.
Executive Roles
The majority of those in executive-level roles are white. Only 9% of executives are people of color – and only 3% of executive roles are held by women of color.
Executive Roles
Firm Characteristics:
First-time funds and firms with smaller fund sizes have slightly greater representation of women
Fund Size
The smallest ($5-$15MM) and the largest funds ($100M+) had the greatest racial diversity.
Fund Size
Women have greater representation in Angel Groups and Family Offices than in Venture Capital.
Fund Type
Venture-Backed Startups by the Numbers
The data was collected in the spring of 2019. The dataset includes 120 startups backed by Chicago venture firms, including 65 from Chicago, 22 from the rest of the Central US, 14 East Coast startups, 18 West Coast startups, and 1 from another location. All data was self-reported by all companies, with the exception of information on gender and ethnicity of CEOs, which was gathered by the Chicago:Blend Team.
Overall by Gender
Overall by Ethnicity*
*Please note that due to data discrepancy in collecting the “Overall by Race/Ethnicity” data, we have removed all employee data that was coded as “Other” under Race/Ethnicity from the graph and analysis. We regret the data collection error and will correct it in future iterations of the survey.
“<10% of startup boards are women, and <2% are Hispanic or Black.”
Board Overview:
9.8% of Board Seats are held by women, and 10.2% of Board Seats are held by people of color.
See what Chicago:Blend is doing to change this:
Companies with women CEOs also have more women board members
Companies with CEOs who are people of color also have more people of color on boards.
“10.7% of startup teams are black or hispanic, and 32.7% are women”
Technical Roles:
14.4% of those in technical roles are women, and 18.3% of those in technical roles are people of color.
Growth Roles:
45.6% of those in Sales, Marketing, BD, and Customer success roles are women, and 12.3% are people of color.
Operations and Finance Roles:
34.9% of those in Operations, Finance, People, and other roles are women, and 22.5% are people of color.
