Rheaply is changing the way that organizations such as Target, Exelon, Google, MIT, and the City of San Francisco source, procure, and utilize resources. With its innovative resource exchange platform, the company equips world-leading organizations to understand and improve their total environmental impact.

In the past five years, Rippleshot’s revenues have grown by 15,757%, while its client base of financial institutions has increased by 115,600% - totaling 1,157 banks and credit unions by the end of 2021. Rippleshot reached profitability in 2020, and its one-year EBITDA growth is 473%.

Amid endless economic disruption, as a Certified B Corporation, woman-led, purpose-driven, and social impact fintech organization, SpringFour has partnered with leading financial institutions, consumer lenders, and servicers, nonprofits, and employers to immediately meet the needs of millions of Americans by delivering vetted local government and nonprofit financial health resources. Today, SpringFour is core to companies’ ESG work, enabling them to achieve measurable financial health results as part of their social impact work that benefit the institutions, their customers, and our communities at large, and is seen as a leader in the financial health and social impact space with win-win solutions for all.

Aqua Cultured Foods is a food tech startup solving one of the planet's most intractable environmental problems: how to supply sustainable protein to a growing population without depleting our oceans and coastal regions-which are more important for mitigating climate change, and ensuring a livable planet, than even rainforests. Aqua's novel microbial fermentation technology uses only a fraction of the resources required by traditional aquaculture and delivers a highly realistic texture, taste, and appearance, considered a "holy grail" in alternative proteins.

With goals to impact clinical quality improvement and operational efficiencies, Clinify Health's technology platform and care coordination services provides organizations with the tools to monitor and improve their quality performance while ensuring the needs of the medically underserved communities they live in work in are met.

Kelly Manthey’s passion comes alive in how she uses her role to make the world of technology more equitable. As executive sponsor of Kin + Carta’s global Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Awareness (IDEA) working groups, Kelly collaborates with Kin from all backgrounds to break the stereotypes around careers in technology and to make Kin + Carta a platform for all employees to thrive.

Snapsheet digitizes insurance processes and workflows through its cloud-native, end-to-end claims management platform designed to modernize insurance. The pioneer in virtual appraisals, Snapsheet has grown to be the leading insurtech solution with offerings for all P&C lines.

Honest Game is the industry?leading on-demand academic compliance solution for high school administrators to save them time by automating the complex and constantly changing NCAA rules and requirements.

John Williamson's focus on operational excellence and diversity is unparalleled -- his mission in life is to remove the barriers to entry in music and entrepreneurship and he displays this with his actions by building a company, artist community and leadership team that is truly diverse. With more than 1/3 of the team and artist community identifying as female, minority or LGBTQ. From an operational standpoint, John has built a data-driven, high growth company that offers tremendous opportunity for growth at both the company and industry level, proving that inclusion can be at the center of a winning corporate strategy.

Anthill is leading the charge in revolutionizing support for the 80% of the global workforce who is deskless. The company is working to ensure even the most marginalized employee can communicate in a safe and supportive environment using the most inclusive technology - text messaging.

ReloShare is an instant booking technology company that powers custom hotel and corporate housing reservation systems. In June 2021, ReloShare launched Safe Stays, a custom hotel booking site -- the only one of its kind -- that provides social service agencies like domestic violence shelters and human trafficking response agencies the ability to book rooms at national hotel partners with complete anonymity via alias check-ins and no credit card or ID requirements.

Rhaeos develops FlowSense, an FDA designated breakthrough technology, that is a proprietary wireless, noninvasive and wearable sensor mounted on skin with size of a standard adhesive bandage to detect the presence and magnitude of fluid flow throughout the human body for various chronic conditions with no cure (e.g. hydrocephalus, dialysis, lymphedema, skin flap reconstruction, etc.). The technology has been validated in peer reviewed medical journals and ongoing clinical trials.

G2 has validated its peer-review model’s value and impactful contribution to the industry, reflected by the $157M Series D financing and its valuation of $1.1B, cementing its place as one of Chicago’s most valuable startups. G2 has welcomed over 200+ new team members in the past year alone, spanning across offices in Chicago, London, Bangalore, and Singapore, and nationwide thanks to hiring remote employees, equating to 50% growth in just one year.

Bonfire is focused on a paradigm shift, helping women create systemic change in the workplace by unlocking potential within themselves and their organizations. We prioritize diversity and inclusion, creating a powerful collective dynamic where women find a sense of belonging, a network for accountability and a community for support and growth.

Marc Shiffman has made an outsized impact from his earliest days as SMS Assist’s 25th employee to becoming CEO in April 2019, bolstering the company with level-headed leadership and bold vision during periods of rapid growth, steady progress, and unexpected change. A hard-charging, consensus-building, forward-thinking executive unrelentingly committed to his team, Shiffman exemplifies the best of Chicago’s technology community.

NuCurrent is revolutionizing Near Field Communications (NFC) technology for wireless charging that will free users from cords so they can charge while they wear their wearables. With NFC hardware in billions of devices worldwide, NuCurrent’s charge-while-you wear technology (already deployed by WHOOP) is fast-transforming how the world experiences wearable technology

Ruben is a respected leader and a relentless entrepreneur. He's defying the odds and disrupting an industry with bold new ideas and technology that empowers people who have historically been marginalized by the business community.

ActiveCampaign is one of Chicago's newest and largest unicorns, and has created over 600 jobs in Chicagoland. The incredible growth over the last two years, including a $240M Series C round in April 2021 proves that ActiveCampaign is on a hypergrowth trajectory with no sign of slowing down. This can be attributed to the extremely high customer retention rates along with equally high customer satisfaction rates across platforms, and it could not be done without the work from the best-in-class team, which was ranked as the #2 Best Place to Work by Built in Chicago.

CoinFlip is dedicated to making cryptocurrency accessible. This is why you can find CoinFlip kiosks anywhere from rural towns to urban centers across the country, along with 24/7 award winning customer service and support.

Given its mission and commitment to sustainability, PwP has strict criteria for impact partners. PwP requires exceptional products and assesses them rigorously, from taste, appearance, efficacy, materials, resilience, sustainability, packaging and functionality to how the company markets its products and what its true social impact really is to its workers and PwP’s recipients. These fundamentals must be apparent as they are part of an Impact Booklet PwP produces on FSC-certified paper and includes with every gift it sells. DEI is built into PwP’s mission and mindset, which has resulted in a diverse team and warm welcoming, open-minded culture.

48M Americans are burdened with spending over 20 hours a week providing care for their loved ones, creating meaningful impacts to their mental health and workplace productivity. Homethrive addresses this growing national issue by providing caregivers with a digital assistant (Dari) for coaching, navigation, and educational content as well as a dedicated Care Guide that helps families manage the physical, emotional, and logistical needs of caring for a loved one who is aging or has special need, resulting in 62% of users experiencing a reduction in inpatient and/or ER utilization and an 80% reduction in employee turnover.

Valqari is using their patented technology (which they have 28 granted patents already), to revolutionize last mile delivery. Rather than use their technology for military purposes, they are focusing on using technology to help people by building systems to fight wildfires, provide first responder resupply, increase access to medical care, and close food deserts; all using their technology

Leaf Trade has been at the forefront of B2B cannabis tech since 2016 and has continued to build technology relied on by the largest cannabis companies in the country, and the industry at large. After raising $22.5M over the past five years, Leaf Trade has been able to capture the most prominent players in the cannabis market while building technology that supports licensed cultivators in safely selling their products to licensed retailers in 20+ states.

It used to be impossible to find dependable home repair experts, and Fixer has solved that. We've created a sustainable, impact-driven business that benefits homeowners, workers, and the communities we serve.

With an innovative architecture built to maximize the benefits of modern NVMe SSDs, Ocient is delivering breakthrough performance on analytics workloads that process trillions of data records and beyond. Ocient’s Hyperscale Data Warehouse is a new tool in the race to unlock the potential of data analytics at a scale previously only imaginable.

SpotHero should receive this award due to its relentless pursuit of consumer innovations and formation of a digital marketplace in a formerly low-tech industry. Through SpotHero’s Labs program, SpotHero has advanced the sophistication of parking systems. It has shown that such digital transformation serves the interests of consumers and parking operators and allows municipalities to re-envision urban mobility including dynamic future systems for controlling congestion and avoidance of contagion.

A disrupter in the space, Cooler Screens has re-imagined refrigerator and freezer doors, helping millions of customers get what they need faster, and hundreds of retailers grow. A true, innovative, Chicago company. Cooler Screens was founded by dreamers like you. We are a collective of proven entrepreneurs and respected industry leaders from top companies in retail, consumer goods, and technology. We created Cooler Screens to reimagine the consumer experience by bringing the power of digital to brick-and-mortar retail.

Headquartered in Chicago, Wavicle Data Solutions has built a reputation based on growth, innovation in AI and data analytics, and as a great place to work. In addition to building strong alliances with some of Chicago’s (and the nation’s) largest enterprises, the company has dedicated significant time and resources to developing and promoting programs that support STEM and the data sciences in Chicago, particularly among diverse and underserved communities.