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Venture Capital
westloopventures.com

Investments

13

Portfolio Exits

3

Funds

1

About West Loop Ventures

West Loop Ventures funds early stage founders that solve problems in institutional finance.

Headquarters Location

Chicago, Illinois,

United States

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Latest West Loop Ventures News

ML Tech Raises $1.75 Million Seed to Scale Technology, Accelerate Growth

Sep 1, 2021

ML Tech Raises $1.75 Million Seed to Scale Technology, Accelerate Growth CHICAGO, August 31, 2021-- ML Tech has closed a $1.75 million seed round from West Loop Ventures, OCA Ventures, Tellus Tech Ventures, Rebel One Ventures, Floating Point Group, as well as executives and traders from the high frequency trading (HFT) industry. ML Tech engages in the crypto asset space by providing a HFT platform for quant researchers, while connecting them with institutional capital. ML Tech offers low exchange fees, access to large pools of capital as well as top execution speeds and robust infrastructure to give experienced researchers an optimal strategy development environment. Leo Mindyuk, CEO at ML Tech, said that the company plans to use its newly acquired funds to integrate with additional trading venues, scale its cloud infrastructure, onboard more researchers, and enhance its financial reporting capabilities. ML Tech is actively hiring new personnel to build its fast growing business. “ML Tech is solving problems in the cryptocurrency space in a very unique and scalable way,” says Jeff Carter, general partner at West Loop Ventures. Carter is a former independent trader and CME Board Member. Carter and his partner, former high frequency trader Kenny Estes, met Leo Mindyuk through their connections at Chicago Booth. This will be West Loop’s final initial seed investment, Carter says. Estes was an early employee at Getco and was impressed with ML Tech’s platform and approach to the marketplace. “ML Tech is creating a highly innovative and disruptive platform for quantitative researchers to execute upon their strategies in the capital markets, which could unleash QR talent from the grips of trade execution and large firm bureaucracies, finally democratizing the playing field for researchers. OCA Ventures is very excited to help Leo and ML Tech team, and we praise University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge for helping to bring this inspiring company to market!” stated Jim Dugan, Founding Managing Partner of OCA Ventures. This landmark for ML Tech follows its participation in the University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge, where they ranked as the top FinTech company. The New Venture Challenge is the highest ranked university accelerator program in the nation. ML Tech’s platform already has successful researchers and large institutional crypto investors who invest through the platform. Last month the trading strategies generated more than $150M in trading volume and had outsized returns. Leo Mindyuk believes this funding and support from strategic backers will allow ML Tech to bring more users to the platform and build upon the existing momentum. For more information, please visit https://mltech.ai/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/mltech/.

West Loop Ventures Investments

13 Investments

West Loop Ventures has made 13 investments. Their latest investment was in Seel as part of their Series A on January 1, 2022.

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West Loop Ventures Investments Activity

investments chart

Date

Round

Company

Amount

New?

Co-Investors

Sources

1/13/2022

Series A

Seel

$17M

No

9

8/31/2021

Seed VC

ML Tech

$1.75M

Yes

3

11/27/2020

Seed VC - II

Vauban

$2.14M

No

3

11/1/2020

Seed VC - II

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$99M

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10

11/22/2019

Series B

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$99M

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10

Date

1/13/2022

8/31/2021

11/27/2020

11/1/2020

11/22/2019

Round

Series A

Seed VC

Seed VC - II

Seed VC - II

Series B

Company

Seel

ML Tech

Vauban

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Amount

$17M

$1.75M

$2.14M

$99M

$99M

New?

No

Yes

No

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Co-Investors

Sources

9

3

3

10

10

West Loop Ventures Portfolio Exits

3 Portfolio Exits

West Loop Ventures has 3 portfolio exits. Their latest portfolio exit was Vauban on July 01, 2022.

Date

Exit

Companies

Valuation
Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model.

Acquirer

Sources

7/1/2022

Acquired

$99M

1

10/27/2020

Acquired

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$99M

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10

10/30/2019

Acquired

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$99M

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10

Date

7/1/2022

10/27/2020

10/30/2019

Exit

Acquired

Acquired

Acquired

Companies

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Valuation

$99M

$99M

$99M

Acquirer

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Sources

1

10

10

West Loop Ventures Fund History

1 Fund History

West Loop Ventures has 1 fund, including West Loop Venture Fund.

Closing Date

Fund

Fund Type

Status

Amount

Sources

12/8/2016

West Loop Venture Fund

$3M

1

Closing Date

12/8/2016

Fund

West Loop Venture Fund

Fund Type

Status

Amount

$3M

Sources

1

West Loop Ventures Team

2 Team Members

West Loop Ventures has 2 team members, including , .

Name

Work History

Title

Status

Kenny Estes

Founder

Current

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Name

Kenny Estes

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Work History

Title

Founder

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Status

Current

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