HispanicBusiness

Funding: $9.5 million in Series E and A (post-pivot)

Employees: 25-plus

Description: A product that helps companies efficiently spread research and development work across multiple computers.

Outlook: Univa projects doubling its business this year, while growing its customer base four times. Half of this growth will come from Europe and Asia.



PixelEXX Systems

Founders: Dr. Samuel Wickline, Stuart Solin, Kirk Wallace and Mike Hughes

Description: Developing a new way of imaging DNA, proteins and cells for medical and pharmaceutical research



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OCA VENTURES



Founded: 1999

Founders: Jim Dugan, John Dugan and Peter Ianello

Current (2nd) fund: $50 million (closed 2008)

Invested so far: About $32 million

Typical investment: $50,000 to $100,000 for seed investments; $500,000 to $2 million for main funds

Strategy: OCA typically leads or co-leads initial funding rounds. It recently launched OCA EDGE, which provides seed capital, often to consumer-facing web and mobile-commerce startups. Portfolio Companies:



Apparel Media Group

Founder: Jared Golden, Gerry Hays and Amish Tolia

Founded: 2009

Funding: $1.8 million from seed and Series A rounds

Employees: 10

One sentence description: Enables companies to advertise through hyper-local sponsorship programs; for example, Gatorade sponsoring a kids' soccer team or AXE sponsoring college student groups. Outlook: Apparel Media currently helps businesses reach groups in the offline world (via merchandise), but this year the company is launching its first consumer-facing platform, called Pear. The app enables school groups, sports teams, etc. to earn sponsorships by promoting a business of their choice via social media.

Power2Switch

Founders: Seyi Fabode and Phil Nevels

Description: Helps consumers acquire cheaper electricity with a few mouse clicks.



Cleversafe

Founder: Chris Gladwin Description: Developed and offers a cutting-edge storage method for big data



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ORIGIN VENTURES



Founded: 1999

Founders: Steven Miller and Bruce Barron

Current (2nd) fund: $15.2 million (closed 2005)

Invested so far: All of it. Typical investment: $1 million to $2 million

Strategy: Origin specializes in e-commerce, social media and software as a service companies. They target Chicago-area and Midwestern companies. Portfolio companies:



Ifbyphone

Founder: Irv Shapiro

Founded: 2005

Funding: $17.6 million in Series A and B rounds

Employees: 70

Description: Using unique phone numbers, Ifbyphone tracks the sources of companies' incoming calls, thereby measuring the strengths of different online and offline advertising tools. Outlook: Their goal is to double revenue and penetrate their technology deeper into several sectors, including real estate and home services. Each of these sectors relies heavily on phone conversations to close business.



GrubHub

Founders: Matt Maloney and Mike Evans

Description: An online food-ordering service



ClaimForce

Founder: Dennis O'Mahoney