Investments
13Portfolio Exits
3Funds
1
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Latest West Loop Ventures News
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 Loops final initial seed investment, Carter says. Estes was an early employee at Getco and was impressed with ML Techs 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 Chicagos 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 Chicagos 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 Techs 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.

West Loop Ventures Investments Activity

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 | |||||
11/22/2019 | Series B |
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 | ||
Amount | $17M | $1.75M | $2.14M | ||
New? | No | Yes | No | ||
Co-Investors | |||||
Sources | 9 | 3 | 3 |
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.
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 |