Lightbank is a financial organization that specializes in making

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

investments in "disruptive" technology companies in the United States including

seed investment Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

Series A round A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exch ...

and late-stage investments. It combines investment with guidance and direct involvement with the companies it invests in. It was founded by

Brad Keywell Brad Keywell (born October 1969) is an American entrepreneur from Michigan. He is the founder and executive chairman of Uptake Technologies, an industrial AI software provider. He is an early investor of Tempus Labs, co-founder of Groupon, Echo ...

and

Eric Lefkofsky Eric Paul Lefkofsky (born September 2, 1969) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the founder of Tempus, and the co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics (ECHO), InnerWorkings (INWK), and Mediaocean. He is an early investor in U ...

. It is headquartered in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and it has made investments in companies in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, Omaha and the Bay Area.

Investments

Lightbank has invested in a number of companies, including the website

Groupon Groupon is an American global e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in 13 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched there in November 2008, launching soon af ...

. Lightbank's Eric Lefkofsky was an original co-founder, along with

Andrew Mason Andrew D. Mason (born 1981) is an American businessman and entrepreneur. He is the founder and former CEO of Groupon, a Chicago-based website offering users discounts on local businesses and scholarships. He is also the founder and CEO of Desc ...

of Groupon. Other Lightbank investments include Sprout Social, Snapsheet,

Belly Belly may refer to: Anatomy * The abdomen, the part of the body between the pelvis and the thorax; or the stomach ** A beer belly, an overhang of fat above the waist, presumed to be caused by regular beer drinking ** Belly dance * The fleshy, cen ...

Boom Technology Boom Technology, Inc. (trade name Boom Supersonic) is an American company designing a , 65-88-passenger supersonic airliner. Named the Boom Overture, the airliner is planned to have a range of and to be introduced in 2025. After being incubat ...

, Fiverr, Fooda,

SpotHero SpotHero is a digital parking marketplace that connects drivers looking to reserve and pay for parking spaces with parking lots, parking garages and valet services. The company, which operates a mobile app and website as well as a parking developer ...

Tempus Tempus is a Latin word meaning time and a Finnish, Swedish and German word meaning grammatical tense. It may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Television *"Tempus, Anyone?", 1996 episode of ''Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Super ...

Udemy Udemy, Inc. is a global destination for teaching and learning online. It was founded in May 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar. As of November 2022, the platform has more than 57 million students, 213,000 courses, and 74,000 ins ...

, test preparation service BenchPrep, Qwiki, HighGround, and Hello Divorce.

Partners

Lefkofsky was a co-founder of Lightbank, though he became 'Special Advisor' in 2014-2015 during his tenure as CEO of

. He then returned to Lightbank as managing partner in November 2015 after stepping down as CEO of Groupon. Other partners include Eric Ong, Matt Sacks, and Bill Pescatello.

References

External links

* Venture capital firms of the United States Private equity firms of the United States Companies based in Chicago Financial services companies established in 2010 2010 establishments in Illinois {{US-private-equity-company-stub

Investments

Partners

See also

References

External links