One of the growing trends in the venture scene is the addition of family offices to the mix of prospective investors. It used to be family offices would just invest in professionally managed venture funds, but many are now building in-house teams and starting to make direct investments. Most family offices like to keep a low profile, and are hard to find, so I did my best here. I also included some venture funds that have outside money, as well, if the lion's share of the fund is the personal investment vehicle for one family.
Here are some of the bigger family offices I am aware of here in Chicago, including the key family investor in parentheses:
Ashland Capital (a collection of families)
Breslow Forsythe Group (confidential)
Caretta (Eric Becker)
Certare Ventures (Art Wong)
Chaifetz Group (Richard Chaifetz)
Concentric Equity Partners (Harrison Steans)
Corazon Capital (Sam Yagan)
Crown Family Office (Lester Crown) -- no website
Diversified Capital (Larry Levy)
DRW Venture Capital (Don Wilson)
Duchossois Capital Management (Craig Duchossois)
Equity Group Investments (Sam Zell)
G2T3V (Howard Tullman)
Grand Crossing Capital (Clay Naccarato)
Harrison Street (Chris Galvin & Michael Galvin)
Huizenga Capital Management (Wayne Huizenga)
Incisent Labs (Pat Ryan)
Jump Capital (Paul Gurinas & Bill Disomma)
Jumpstart Ventures (Rishi Shah & Shradha Agarwal)
Lead Lap LLC (David Zucker)
LEO Capital (Randy Rissman)
Lightbank (Brad Keywell & Eric Lefkofsky)
Longview Asset Management (Lester Crown)
KB Partners (Keith Bank)
Kenex Holdings (a collection of families)
Keystone Capital (the partners of Keystone's personal money)
KGC Capital (Dick Kiphart)
Mansueto Ventures (Joe Mansueto)
Matthew Pritzker Company (Matthew Pritzker)
Merrick Ventures (Michael Ferro)
McNally Capital (a collection of families)
OCA Ventures (Jim Dugan, John Dugan & Peter Ianello)
Old Town Capital (Jamie Crouthamel)
Origin Ventures (Steve Miller)
OS Fund (Bryan Johnson)
PFG Group (a collection of families)
Pritzker Group Venture Capital (J.B. Pritzker & Tony Pritzker)
Promus Ventures (Andy Code)
PSP Capital Partners (Penny Pritzker)
Reyes Holdings (Christopher Reyes & Jude Reyes)
Romar Partners (Scott Wald & George Colis)
Sawdust Investment Management (Michael Krasny)
Skydeck LLC (Michael Polsky)
TCS Group (Ted Schwartz)
Be sure to research their website to ensure your industry and the stage of your business qualifies for their investment criteria, as many of these prefer private equity stage to venture capital stage businesses. If you are aware of other big ones I am missing, please add them to the comments field.
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