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It may not be Silicon Valley—yet—but Chicago sure has a healthy tech scene.

One indicator is the presence of big tech companies in the city, and Mike Ewing at Thrillist notes that local startups raised $1.7 billion in funding in 2015.

One of the reasons why investors like Chicago tech organizations, he says, is most serve businesses instead of chasing the latest consumer trend. Other positives are the city’s reasonable cost of living (when compared, say, to San Francisco), a slew of local universities and programs providing tech talent and support for new businesses.

We’ve compiled a list of 19 tech and digital companies in Silicon Prairie doing innovative, very cool work.

Opternative

An online eye exam from the comfort of your own home? Yup, that’s Opternative: the new way to get a prescription for your glasses or contact lenses. With a computer and smartphone, take your eye exam when it’s convenient for you, and use the doctor-issued prescription to shop wherever you want.

ContextMedia

The next time you’re watching a health-related presentation at your doctor’s office, you’ll know it’s probably courtesy of ContextMedia. Delivering information to patients is what they do, driving improved health outcomes through education and the creation of informed dialogue between patients and physicians.

The playlist is customized and condition-specific, according to the office you’re in and the usual conditions treated there, and patients can connect to relevant messaging from their physician on their phones while at the office.

The Nerdery

This custom software design and development company helps businesses redefine customer service and experience through innovative technology. If your business has one idea or multiple complex challenges, The Nerdery can help using mobile and web applications, systems integration, and practical digital strategy.

Centro

Centro develops digital advertising and media management software. Its goal is to make media professionals’ jobs easier, and in addition to the products and solutions offered today, Centro says it’ll soon have a platform that will completely reshape the way you work.

 

Motion.AI

Bots can do just about anything, writes Motion AI CEO David Nelson, from diagnosing patients to taking payments or food orders to running customer service chats. Motion AI makes chatbot creation easy via a DIY artificial intelligence platform where flowcharts of actions become personalized AI tools that can be integrated into any site.

mRelief

If you’re a Chicagoan in need of assistance with food, health or housing, you can see whether you qualify through the technology nonprofit mRelief. The company’s site and text messaging tool save people time otherwise lost in line-ups, allowing them to get the help they need faster.

In June, mRelief launched Summer Meal Sites, an SMS tool that lets families check their eligibility for food assistance across 42 states.

IDS

Founded in 2002, this IT consulting practice is headquartered in Chicago, but delivers it cloud services and custom IT solutions worldwide. IDS, which was named to this year’s to Crain’s Chicago Fast 50 and CRN’s Solution Provider 500, helps its clients improve efficiency and performance by transforming the way IT is delivered and consumed.

One North Interactive

This digital agency helps companies with everything from brand planning to back-end development. One North’s goal is to strengthen business-customer relationships. And delivering compelling cross-platform customer experiences, they say, starts with putting those relationships first, and then creating unique holistic digital solutions.

Trustwave

Helping businesses fight cybercrime with smart security on demand, Trustwave is hard at work keeping more than 3 million businesses safe in its TrustKeeper cloud-based security service. Trustwave has customers in 96 countries, working to reduce their security risk and protect their data through managed information and security compliance programs and technologies.

SingleHop

A cloud-hosting provider with two Chicago-area data centers, SingleHop offers end-users and resellers on-demand instructional services that are scalable. Serving 5,500 customers in 124 countries, SingleHop has 10,000 servers online. Last year, SingleHop made Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, as reported by Joseph Tsidulko for CRN.

Uptake

Uptake helps clients gather and understand an enormous amount of data and then act on it. The company was founded by Groupon’s Brad Keywell in 2014, and tends to work with companies in major global industries such as insurance and automotive. Instead of allowing operational data go to waste, Uptake’s platform can capture and use it to deliver predictive recommendations.

HERE

Sold last year for $3.1 billion, HERE is a global leader in dynamic mapping. The 30-year old cartography company offers solutions to consumers, enterprises and the automotive industry. You can download the new generation of free smartphone and web apps that simplify urban navigation, and you might already be using the company’s maps in your car: HERE maps can be found in four out of five factory-fit navigation systems in North America and Europe.

 

Paylocity

Paylocity developed cloud-based software that manages mid-market human resources and payroll with a smart online system. It creates a streamlined, time-saving process that can impact both the workforce itself and a company’s bottom line. Paylocity has gone national, expanding from its 10 Chicago-only sales reps to 164 nationwide, doubling its Chicago employee base.

LaunchPoint

With cloud-based software and service, LaunchPoint is working to help health insurers clean up health plans and medical claim data. Its analytics platform “mines, manages and analyzes data at the heart of the healthcare ecosystem.” This allows healthcare organizations, such as Blue Cross, to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and increase revenue.

Tock

Brian Fitzpatrick and Nick Kokonis, co-founders of the restaurant-booking software company Tock, think software should be “almost an extension of your mind.” They offer a product that helps restaurateurs run their business better via a system that is fast, scalable and maintainable. Why was Tock created? Simple. “Restaurants have used crappy software for too long.”

ParqEx

There’s a software company in Chicago that does for empty residential parking spots what SpotHero and ParkWhiz do for commercial lots and garages. Launched last summer, the peer-to-peer parking platform lets you find and reserve a private parking spot (or list your spot when you’re not using it) by the hour, day, week or month. ParqEx is also available in Boston, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia.

RedWave Energy

This company is developing technology that will convert industrial waste heat to electricity. This is RedWave’s first application of its technology, says CEO Jim Nelson. “Initial phases of development will also enable point-to-point communication and sophisticated detection capabilities,” he adds on his LinkedIn page. “This is made possible by advanced antenna and associate diode technology to allow rectification at previously untouched frequency levels.”

Road to Status

Road to Status can help those struggling with the complicated process of getting visas, Green Cards and immigration documents. The online platform builds the correct filing package based on the user’s answers to step-by-step questions and checks the application for errors before submission. It’s affordable and secure, created by former Department of Homeland Security immigration attorneys.

Narrative Science

Narrative Science began as an artificial intelligence research project and has since turned into a technology company that’s based in Chicago with offices in New York and D.C. Their advanced natural language generation platform, Quill, helps turn complex sets of data into understandable English.

 

This can be especially useful for reporters writing highly complicated finance stories and for financial institutions generating reports that need to be fully understood for best decision making. Narrative Science says it best: “Tell the stories hidden in your data with advanced natural language generation.”

Credits:

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Maurizio Cichero
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