Hey Friends!
WE MADE IT to Issue #30 of the Driver’s Seat! 🚙
Highlights from Last Week:
Our first AI Meetup on Campus took place at Illinois Tech.
Special thanks to IIT student Kaya Jones for helping us put this together.
We had over 110 RSVPs for the event, where we spoke about AI activity in Chicago, along with my pitch for why today is the perfect time to build a business leveraging this technology.
My belief is that every company will find ways to leverage AI in one way or another to deliver value to customers and consumers.
This week, I’m heading to University of Michigan for our next second AI Meetup on Campus. 👇
We also held the first Chicago AI Tinkerers event at Drive Chicago!
AI Tinkerers is a meetup designed for builders with technical, machine learning, and entrepreneurial backgrounds, who are actively working with LLMs and generative AI.
CEO Jake from brx.ai giving a demo on his platform
The next AI Tinkerers @ Drive event will be on November 7th at Drive Chicago.
Be on the lookout for an announcement in an upcoming Driver’s Seat!
📍 Today’s Lineup:
🌞 Chicago's Climate Tech Horizon
🚢 Record Onshoring in the Midwest
📊 Chart of the Week
🗺 Events Around the City
🔙 Previous Issues of the Driver’s Seat
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Let’s dive in! 🚙 🚙 🚙
🌞 Chicago’s Climate Tech Horizon
Reflecting on last week’s World Business Chicago Future-of-Climate-Tech Summit, I wanted to highlight a few stats representing the uniqueness of Chicago's Climate Tech sector.
What is a Green Economy:
In its simplest form, a green economy is a city that prioritizes environmental responsibility.
There are ten major elements that an ecosystem needs to become a green economy:
Renewable and Clean Energy Production
Sustainable Transportation
Circular Economy Practices
Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
Environmental Technologies and Innovation
Green Finance and Investment
Sustainability Reporting and Transparency
Government Policies and Initiatives
Job Creation and Workforce Development
Global Collaborations and Agreements
Chicago has it all.
How Does Chicago Rank:
Chicago’s green economy produced over $18B in economic output in 2022, with a growth of nearly 180% between 2016 and 2022.
There are 350 clean and climate tech companies in Chicago.
65,000 individuals were employed in Chicago’s green economy in 2022.
Our green industry’s output makes up nearly 2.2% of Chicagoland's total economy.
Chicago companies currently hold 788 patents related to clean and climate technology.
What’s Next:
Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson launched the Chicagoland Climate Investment Alliance to promote eco-friendly startups / climate investments in the Midwest.
The Alliance, supported by World Business Chicago and Invenergy, will boost investments in decarbonization / secure federal grants for climate tech developed in the region.
🚢 Record Onshoring in the Midwest
We’ve previously covered Midwest onshoring in the Driver’s Seat.
A decade ago, only 8% of US companies were planning to onshore, or bring back, their manufacturing efforts to the US. Today, the number is 91%.
Many onshoring efforts are being launched between the coasts.
Catalysts for Record Onshoring:
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
The CHIPS Act
The $550B Infrastructure Bill
Global conflict / unrest (Russia, risk of China / Taiwan, and the pandemic)
Talent Insights:
A key to increased onshoring is availability of talent in the states, specifically a skilled workforce that can complete manufacturing tasks that were initially sourced from other countries.
The Midwest has created over 364,000 manufacturing jobs during the last 13 years.
Why Chicago:
The Midwest will continue to become a hub for onshoring for the following reasons:
Chicago has the busiest rail center (25% of US freight already passes through the city)
Chicago has the largest port in North America.
Chicago is the second largest manufacturing hub, adding 12,000 jobs last year alone.
📊 Chart of the Week
According to Carta, seed valuations have been on the rise, nearing the heightened levels of 2021 and 2022, around $14M.
The average funding round size stands at $3.2M.
🗺️ Events Around The City
Balancing Returns and Responsibility: Evidence from Shrinkage-based Portfolios
Hosted by FMA
Wednesday October 11
Inside the Loop Coffee Chat
Hosted by Martin Hamedani, Matt Nemer, and Dylan Ketcham
Thursday October 12
Socratic Seminar
Hosted by Chicago BITDEVS
Thursday October 12
Tech Talks - Sports Tech Startups
Hosted by 1871
Thursday October 12
👋 See you next week!
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram for even more Chicago startup news and photos of my favorite restaurants in the city.
