Dear Chicago Booth Angels Club Members,

Happy New Year! We hope you are staying warm during these winter months. As we kick off 2026, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on what has been an active and rewarding 2025 for our angel investing community.

Despite a dynamic—and at times challenging—market environment, our group continued to grow, learn, and support exceptional founders. Over the past year, we refined our investment process, deepened collaboration across chapters, and strengthened the quality of companies coming through the network. Thank you for your engagement, insights, and commitment throughout the year.

Welcome to Our New Members

We are pleased to welcome the following new members to the Chicago Booth Angels Network:

Jamie Li · Craig Giventer · Stephanie Widman · Suzanne Schecter · Victoria Gustafson · Jessica Tam · Malaika Mathias · Eva Tsang · Joe Castillo · Tatiana Marinescu · Kalyani Tipnis · Robert Danziger · David Drinan · Joseph Zhou · Katherine Jackson · Shubha Chakravarthy · Angel Zhu · Alex Frederick

The experience and perspectives of our members are the foundation of the Network’s success. We look forward to increasing member engagement and collaboration in the year ahead.

Membership reminder: Existing members, don’t forget to renew your 2026 membership to ensure continued communication from the Club.

2025 Investment Updates

During 2025, the members of the group invested in three early-stage companies: Waku, Otonexus, and Phase 3D. These investments reflect our members' shared focus on strong founding teams, differentiated solutions, and long-term growth potential.

A CBAN member invested company also celebrated their first successful exit. Groundbreaker Technologies was acquired by Janovar in 2024, with final proceeds distributed to investors in 2025.

We are encouraged by the progress across our members' portfolio and look forward to supporting continued momentum in 2026.

Upcoming Events & Announcements

April 8 | 4:00–6:00 PM CT

Virtual Pitch & Demo Day (Free and open to the public; registration required) — Register here

Applications for the Winter 2026 Pitch Event are now open on GUST. Please encourage founders who are currently fundraising to apply. Startups do not need to be affiliated with the University of Chicago to be considered.

Stay Connected

Follow us on LinkedIn for the latest updates from the Network, including product launches, funding milestones, partnerships, and hiring news.

Referrals: Companies & New Members

Referrals continue to be a key driver of the Network’s success. If you know like-minded angels or startups building the next great thing, we encourage you to send them our way.

CBAN Member Invested Company Highlights

Fabalish delivered its strongest quarter-to-date with $1.26M in Q3 revenue, reaching a $5M run rate and achieving profitability and positive cash flow through strong margins and disciplined cost optimization. The company expanded major branded partnerships across foodservice and e-commerce and is evaluating growth capital and long-term debt to support continued scaling.

ArchwayPet completed a national product launch across Chewy, Amazon, and independent retailers, alongside a successful rebrand and the acquisition of Bright Planet Pet. Revenue more than doubled year-over-year to approximately $200K, while burn rate was reduced meaningfully as brand awareness accelerated through national media exposure.

SYNVECT transitioned from proof-of-concept to real-world deployment in 2025, achieving 98% customer satisfaction and securing multi-million-dollar commitments. The company is preparing for large-scale pilots, expanding production capacity, and advancing a multi-species pipeline while pursuing non-dilutive funding to support its path toward Series A.

CloudNuro achieved strong commercial traction with a ~$1M net revenue run rate and a $1.8M sales pipeline, adding new enterprise and public-sector customers while expanding within existing accounts. The company also earned industry recognition, including a Chicago Innovation Award and a Gartner Magic Quadrant honorable mention.

Ascent Integrated Technologies scaled significantly in 2025, securing $4.5M in new U.S. Air Force contracts and deploying over 380 WearTAK™ devices across federal agencies. With $1.9M in 2025 revenue and $2.5M already booked for 2026, the company enters the year with strong forward visibility and is not currently fundraising.

TrueToForm launched its visual size prediction widget with major apparel retailers, driving a 3.7–4.8x lift in conversion and up to a 43% reduction in returns. The company also secured a U.S. utility patent for its body scanning technology and expanded its commercial efforts with its first sales hire.

Esya Labs strategically pivoted to build a sustainable revenue foundation, streamlining operations and transitioning to a market-validated proteomics platform to support future D2C screening tests. The company ended the year focused and capital-efficient, posting its largest revenue-to-date at $1.7M.

ShipCalm launched a new AI-native business operating system enabling multi-agent collaboration and real-time software development, which the company believes could evolve into a standalone, high-growth platform. In parallel, ShipCalm secured a lead investor for its Series A and evaluated private equity acquisition interest.

On behalf of the Board, thank you for your continued participation, insights, and support. We look forward to another year of thoughtful investing, strong collaboration, and backing exceptional founders.

Warm regards,
Chicago Booth Angels Network Board