Hyde Park Angels

Hyde Park Angels is a venture capital group founded in 2007 and based in Chicago, IL, which focuses on angel investments.

Structure & Application Process

The Hyde Park Angels take a unique approach to investing, “functioning more like a traditional venture capital firm.” As one of the most active angel investment companies in the MidWest, there are around 100 members, so the application process is rigorous to put a company in front of so many eyes.

The process is:

  • Companies are vetted and whittled down to about 75
  • Those 75 are brought before a screening committee
  • The screening committee signs off on select few after consulting internal Hyde Park Angels (HPA) subject matter experts
  • Companies deliver pitch to subsection of HPA
  • If selected, get to pitch before HPA
  • Investment status determined with investment coming from group rather than individuals

Leadership

Peter Wilkins is the managing director since 2014, with Michael Sachaj as the principal.

Board members include:

  • Doug Monieson
  • Bob Giammanco
  • Chris Jensen
  • Michelle Collins
  • Joe LaManna
  • Chris McGowan
  • Ellen Rudnick
  • Craig Vodnik

Investments

Hyde Park Angels currently has investments in: Ahaology, Base, Brilliant, Catalytic, Dabble, The Eastman Egg Company, Farmlogs, Fishidy.com, fourkites, Geofeedia, Glidera, In Context Solutions, intellihot, kenna, luxury garage sale, motion.ai, packback, parkwhiz, Persio, Prism Analytical Technologies, Quikly, regroup therapy, RepIQ, Retrofit, Rithmio, sentic technologies, shipbob, simple mills, sonar med, stream link software, transparent career, techstars, turbo appeal, ui co, xaptum, ycharts.

Previous investments include: NuCurrent

Acquisitions

Hyde Park Angels have acquired: Fee Fighters, Food Genius, Grade Beam, Moxie Jean, Power 2 Switch, Simple Relevance, Supply Vision, Tap Me, Retal Technologies, Tempo IQ.

Partnerships

Hyde Park Angels works with the Chicago startup incubator 1871 to host events and educational series to help the entrepreneurial community in Chicago and the MidWest. They also contribute to the local tech community through various other events, including TechWeek.