The team at GroupToast believes that when you want to party with your friends, you shouldn’t have to call a gazillion places, wait for call backs, negotiate drink fees, and then have to coordinate everything. I’d have to say that I agree. This Chicago-based startup gives people the ability to have venues compete for their…
Read More
If you’re interested in both giving and getting, Chicago-based Toodalu can help you rack up cash for yourself and your favorite charity – all by simply going about your daily shopping routine. Toodalu is a new breed of loyalty rewards that generates charitable giving to the causes you choose, each time you spend at a…
Read More
Take two guys who have worked on Wall Street, add a passion to create awesome software that solves challenging problems, and what do you get? No, not a crazy-weird day-trading platform that is so simple your dog can use it, and no, not a budget-tracking app for your smartphone. Instead, Josh Nankin (a coder) and…
Read More
Even though Tech Cocktail is now based in DC, we still consider Chicago home – our first event was held there nearly 6 years ago. Because there’s no place like home, we are really excited to be hosting another one of our classic Tech Cocktail Chicago mixers tonight where we’ll be showcasing a wide range…
Read More
Thinking about producing an explainer video for your website? Finding video producers is easy, which you know if you’ve started a search. What’s difficult and ultimately time-consuming is finding the right video producer at the right price. You can spend weeks doing research, contacting producers, getting estimates and then narrowing down the proposals and picking…
Read More
Vizua started with a conundrum: why are video game graphics far better than medical imaging? It turns out that 2D medical scans are sometimes difficult to read, and other 3D tools are quite expensive. So Vizua offers a cheaper 3D tool for doctors to view medical scans on the web or iPad, then share with…
Read More
Depending on where you live, you’ve already played several rounds of golf this year or are just now getting out the golf clubs, all eager to tee up. If you live in the Chicago area, you’re going to want to start using Back9Booking, a new interactive website that lets you search, compare and book tee…
Read More
“Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day,” said Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert. The same could be said for taking the metro. Somehow after weeks and weeks of delays, construction, and bumper-to-bumper, we still hope for a smooth commute. That’s why commuting is its own class of agony. To ease the pain…
Read More
SocialKaty, a Chicago-based social media marketing company, landed Series A funding recently from Lightbank, the high-profile VC firm that was founded by the original backers of Groupon. Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. I am sure you are thinking the same thing as I was: How does a company that executes online…
Read More
Found in Town is a free, online lost and found recovery service that helps reunite misplaced items such as keys, mobile phones, and wallets, with their rightful owners. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? But there’s more to the company and concept than meets the eye. Founded in Chicago by Zach Haller, he jokingly said that he…
Read More
Though good-intentioned, our acts of charity are sometimes inefficient – we give our local homeless shelter some clothes, for example, when they’re desperately in need of those forgotten wooden chairs in our basement. Setting out to slash those inefficiencies is Zealous Good, a Chicago startup that connects charities to people with unwanted items. Just tell…
Read More
Since launching nearly a year ago, DC-based TroopSwap has been growing by leaps and bounds, raising nearly $1M from angel investors and then raising $2.5M in equity financing and partnering with Lego. The ecommerce platform exclusively for active service members and veterans now offers access to military and veteran discounts, most of which are sourced…
Read More
Demo day is wrapping up in Chicago as 10 new health startups launch to the public out of Healthbox. The 3-month accelerator program offered mentorship, office space, and $50,000 in funding (in exchange for 7 percent equity) to 10 lucky startups who are tackling a tricky sector. “Between rising costs, issues of access and a…
Read More
Solomon Arman Nabatiyan was a research professor at Northwestern University before he started pitching investors. His company, CerviaDx, was planning to create a revolutionary cervical cancer test that would be as easy as a pregnancy test. It seemed like a great investment, Nabatiyan explains: a woman dies of cervical cancer every 2 minutes, yet it’s…
Read More
As an entrepreneur, you are the face of your company. First impressions are important and consequently so too are appearances. The time and energy required to find stylish attire, however, likely is not the best use of your time. Quite the conundrum. CakeStyle is here to save the day. Similar to the much-hyped Truck Club, the…
Read More
Groupon has been on quite the acquisition spree this year. In February, they purchased travel site Uptake, which lets you use your social networks to research travel destinations, adding to their Groupon Getaways department. Prior to that, they acquired Hyperpublic, which aggregrates place and deal data to connect people to places better, and Adku, an…
Read More
Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said their iPad was their primary computer, up from around 30%... Read More
There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with... Read More
We are excited to announce the participating startups for Tech Cocktail's South by Southwest (SXSW) event: #Startuplife Celebration presented by .CO. It was one of... Read More
With our Startup Mixology Conference coming up next week followed by our classic Tech Cocktail DC Summer mixer which will showcase a handful of early-stage... Read More