Investors / United States / Illinois Ventures
Illinois Ventures
Venture capital · Champaign, IL, United States · North America
Illinois Ventures is a university-based venture firm founded in 2000 that invests in early-stage companies connected to the University of Illinois. It has backed more than 125 companies and operates a Deep Tech Fund, an Angel Network and a Pre-Seed Fund.
Invests inHealthcare & BiotechAI & Machine Learning
In its own wordsdeep techuniversity spinoutaiagtechtherapeuticscomputing
Your fit with Illinois Ventures
Four questions about your startup
See how your round matches what it backs, point by point.
Or find every investor that fitsIllinois Ventures lists 58 checked portfolio companies on its own site and is named in 6 funding rounds. Its most frequent entry is Seed, 67% of the companies with a known first round. Its largest themes are Healthcare & Biotech (35%), AI & Machine Learning (22%) and Industrial & Manufacturing (7%). 97% of its companies are based in United States. It invests most often alongside Heinz Ventures, 11 Tribes Ventures and Connetic Ventures.
Counts come from funding rounds that name Illinois Ventures, complete from mid-2025: earlier rounds appear only when they were reported later. Round amounts and full round histories are on Fundup AI.
Round figures show recent activity, not Illinois Ventures' whole history. Rounds on record name 6 companies; its own site lists 58. Funding rounds are complete from mid-2025, so counts and the yearly trend undercount a firm that invested before then. The portfolio, themes and places come from its own site and are not affected.
Entry stage
share of companies by the stage of its first roundShow as a table
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Pre-seed | 0% |
| Seed | 67% |
| Series A | 33% |
| Series B | 0% |
| Growth | 0% |
Activity by year
rounds it joined, last 10 yearsShow as a table
| Total | Rounds it led | |
|---|---|---|
| '17 | 0 | 0 |
| '18 | 0 | 0 |
| '19 | 0 | 0 |
| '20 | 0 | 0 |
| '21 | 0 | 0 |
| '22 | 0 | 0 |
| '23 | 0 | 0 |
| '24 | 0 | 0 |
| '25 | 2 | 0 |
| '26 | 4 | 0 |
Investor profile
percentile among all firmsShow as a table
| Measure | Percentile of all firms | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio size | 87th | 58 companies |
| Recent activity | 86th | 5 rounds in 12 months |
| Early stage | 80th | 67% of entries at pre-seed or seed |
| Evidence | 64th | 5% of companies confirmed by a round |
| Sector focus | 65th | 35% in its largest sector |
| Reach | 42th | 2 countries |
Investment themes
share of its checked companiesThis firmAll checked companies
Show as a table
| This firm | All checked companies | |
|---|---|---|
| Healthcare & Biotech | 35% | 15% |
| AI & Machine Learning | 22% | 18% |
| Industrial & Manufacturing | 7% | 7% |
| Enterprise Software | 7% | 8% |
| Fintech | 6% | 12% |
| Education | 5% | 7% |
| E-commerce & Marketplaces | 4% | 6% |
| Real Estate & Construction | 2% | 3% |
Invests most often with
firms sharing its portfolio companiesShow as a table
| Share | |
|---|---|
| Heinz Ventures | 3 |
| 11 Tribes Ventures | 2 |
| Connetic Ventures | 2 |
| Greycroft | 2 |
| HAX | 2 |
| IndieBio | 2 |
| Michigan Capital Network | 2 |
| Michigan Rise | 2 |
Its portfolio companies
where they are based, and what their own sites showSite status
- Site answers58100%
- No longer answers00%
- Points to another company00%
- Parked or sold domain00%
A site that stops answering three checks in a row is counted as no longer answering; that is not proof of closure. A site that points to another company is often an acquisition.
Co-investor network
who it backs companies with, and who they back togetherCompare Illinois Ventures head to head
portfolio size, rounds, entry stages, themes and the companies both backThree or more firms at once: portfolio overlap.
Recent portfolio activity
when companies last raised with Illinois Ventures| Date | Company | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| 20 Jun 2026 | Series A | |
| 27 May 2026 | Seed | |
| 3 Feb 2026 | Seed | |
| 20 Jan 2026 | Seed | |
| 3 Dec 2025 | Series A | |
| 28 Aug 2025 | Seed |
Round details for Illinois Ventures
Amounts, full round histories and every co-investor in Illinois Ventures' rounds are on Fundup AI. VCinfo covers investors and their portfolios.
Portfolio
58 companies checked against their own sites| Company | What it does | Themes | First round with it | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actuate Therapeutics develops novel therapies, including its lead drug elraglusib, to treat hard-to-treat cancers | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Amber Agriculture develops and sells a device for managing grain in storage bins | AI & Machine LearningAI & Machine Learning | Portfolio page | ||
| Apriority Financial provides debt management services for borrowers | FintechDeveloper Tools | Portfolio page | ||
| Aptimmune Biologics has created a series of advanced enabling technologies which provide solutions to today's most challenging and economically important swine diseases. | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Archean Sciences engineers biology to understand the brain and develops technologies for therapeutic discovery, next-generation computing, and neural interfaces. | Healthcare & BiotechAI & Machine Learning | May 2026Seed | Funding round | |
| Ascent Integrated Technologies develops and provides real-time physiological alerting systems for military and tactical operations. | AI & Machine LearningCybersecurity | Portfolio page | ||
| Auvi Labs designs wearable ultrasound to detect vascular access failure | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Beacon Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that develops gene therapies for ocular diseases | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Beyond Barriers Therapeutics develops a first-of-its-kind, intranasal therapy for concussions called BBT-101. | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Brink Biologics licenses and provides cells, including NK-92 cells, for research and commercial use in various applications such as therapeutics and clinical samples testing. | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| BYLD Innovations is building a portable and foldable 3D printer for engineers who need on-demand and on-site 3D printing | Industrial & Manufacturing | Portfolio page | ||
| Cadenza Bio is a biotechnology company focused on developing a series of novel small-molecule drugs for oral administration in the treatment of demyelinating and inflammatory diseases. | Healthcare & Biotech | Aug 2025Seed | Page + round | |
| Campus Ink is a merch platform built for students and athletes | EducationE-commerce & Marketplaces | Portfolio page | ||
| Cast21 designs and manufactures waterproof, breathable, and lightweight orthopedic casts and braces | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Portfolio page | ||||
| Coologics is advancing a novel, drug-free medical device designed to address vaginal yeast infections in women's health. | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| CranioSense is developing a portable system to help clinicians assess intracranial pressure non-invasively | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Cystetic Medicines develops molecular prosthetics for people with cystic fibrosis | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| DeepWalk provides automated sidewalk inspection software solutions using LiDAR technology | EducationReal Estate & Construction | Portfolio page | ||
| EarthSense develops and provides precision robots and AI for oil palm plantations, orchards, and vineyards. | AI & Machine LearningAI & Machine Learning | Portfolio page |
About this data
site last read 11 Nov 2026- Site
- illinoisventures.com
- Last read
- 11 Nov 2026
- Watching since
- 5 Nov 2026
- Rounds since
- 28 Aug 2025
- Companies checked
- 58
Rates come from what VCinfo has observed since observation_start. Firms tend to remove companies that closed, so early rates understate reality. A company leaving a portfolio page does not mean it closed or exited. An unreachable site means our checks failed, nothing more.
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