Hyde Park Venture Partners Announces $98M HPVP Fund IV

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Chicago, IL (Wed. May 1, 2024) - Hyde Park Venture Partners (HPVP), an early stage venture capital fund headquartered in Chicago, announces the raise of $98 Million Hyde Park Venture Partners Fund IV. Hyde Park Venture Partners was founded in 2012 and invests in early stage startups with founders primarily in the Midwest and Toronto. HPVP Fund IV is backed by repeat backers including the Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, RK Mellon Foundation, Renaissance Venture Capital, and new partner institutions including NVNG and Cintrifuse Capital.

“Hyde Park Venture Partners was one of the earliest funds to bet on the success of the Illinois and broader Midwest startup ecosystem, and has been a catalyst in enabling our local ecosystem’s growth as their fund has matured," said Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs. “We're excited to continue to partner with them as they back the next generation of exceptional founders and companies in the Midwest."

Hyde Park Venture Partners has visibility into more than 90% of mid-continent startups and were early backers of ShipBob, FourKites, G2, LogicGate, and Dentologie, among many others. Combined, HPVP’s portfolio companies have raised well over​ $1B​ in follow-on financing rounds.

Over the past few years, several HPVP portfolio companies have had meaningful exits. Notably among them are VNDLY (Workday, $510M), Tock (Squarespace, more than $400M), Pear Deck (GoGuardian), and FairX (Coinbase). Each of these represents meaningful returns to HPVP limited partners.

"Hyde Park Venture Partners has been an amazing partner to ShipBob since our earliest days," said Dhruv Saxena, CEO and Co-Founder of ShipBob, a leading ecommerce omnifulfillment platform and HPVP portfolio company. "Their connections, expertise, and overall value-add support have been invaluable in helping us reach our global scale."

The close of Fund IV brings HPVP’s total assets under management to approximately $320M, including the $25M 2012 Fund I, $65M 2015 Fund II, $100M 2019 Fund III, and $30M 2021 Opportunity Fund.

“We continue to be wildly excited about working with skilled founders building important companies in the Midwest and Toronto. The sustained success of ShipBob, FourKites, G2, and many others in our portfolio have helped put our geography on the national startup stage,” said Allison Lechnir, HPVP Partner. “Fund IV will see us continue to back top founders with our direct capital, but also with introductions to the talent and later stage partners our portfolio companies need to grow.”

In the last few years, HPVP has added talent to its own team, including Jim Conti as Talent Partner and investors Victoria Leon and Carlos Covarrubias, who was recently promoted to Vice President. Since their last fund, HPVP also promoted Allison Lechnir to Partner, and in this fourth fund, Greg Barnes has been promoted to Managing Partner.

The new fund has invested in two companies to date; Diffit, which leverages generative AI to enable teachers to create “just right” lesson plans for all of their students; and CivCheck, which partners with cities and architects to accelerate the building permitting process.

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To learn more about Hyde Park Venture Partners and its portfolio visit ​www.hydeparkvp.com​. Or, read more about HPVP’s fourth fund here.

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Press contact: Allison Lechnir, allison@hydeparkvp.com