2021: Big year for Chicago tech

By the numbers: Through the first three quarters of 2021 alone, Chicago tech raised over $5.5 billion, up from $2.8 billion in 2020. 2021 saw the most venture funding since they started tracking those statistics 15 years ago.

• Chicago has 12 unicorns valued over $1 billion.

What they're saying: "A record year for fundraising was no surprise," Peter Christman from Chicago Ventures tells Axios. "The question is no longer whether venture-scale companies can be built off the coasts, but rather how big they can get."

Three startups making waves:

📦 ShipBob: The logistics and shipping company is a unicorn that works with 5,500+ ecommerce businesses.

🙏 Hallow: The Catholic religious app used for prayer and meditation raised $40 million in November led by Drive Capital with participation from Peter Thiel, Scott Malpass and others.

💵 EarlyBird: A business that sets up investment accounts for kids, it raised $4 million in its initial seed round from high profile investors, including Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to show that Hallow’s most recent funding round was led by Drive Capital and other investors, not Andreessen Horowitz.