Chicago Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital fund founded to fill a market gap in early-stage capital for tech companies outside traditional hubs like Silicon Valley, focusing on undercapitalized tech ecosystems in the Central U.S. and beyond. They lead seed rounds "before it's obvious" and operate a formal platform function that serves as a direct extension of portfolio companies' teams, with their network explicitly architected to provide customer introductions, expert help, and talent access at scale rather than just for sourcing deals.