Ambitious Builders deserve ambitious capital

*This estimate was made with data from Crunchbase showing Chicago VC participation in local rounds with estimates from founder reporting about angel participation.

For Our Venture Economy to accelerate, we need:

Big Exits + Pipeline

A Tier 1 Venture Ecosystem Builds Upon Itself

National Capital

Local Capital

$

Corporations

Growth Stage Startups

Early Stage Startups

$

Unicorns+

Regional Economy

Founder Support

Introducing Velocity

Velocity is a hyper regional hybrid fund designed to catalyze capital in three critical ways:

Catalyzing AUM

We anchor emerging fund managers in <$50M Funds I, II & III in industries critical to the Midwest. Velocity’s Fund of Funds will catalyze an estimated $600M in assets under management headquartered in IL, making us the largest destination for early-stage capital between the coasts.

Catalyzing Pre-Seed Rounds

We write $250K-$500k anchor checks into ​the first rounds of Pre-Seed companies in ​critical Midwest industries and then support ​those founders with regional co-investors, ​mentorship, and shared back office ​resources, reserving follow on funding for ​the best performers across all portfolios.

Catalyzing Sidelined Capital

We activate previously absent or dormant local capital into our venture economy by activating DAF & philanthropic investments, family offices, and corporate venture dollars into the earliest layer of the capital stack for the first time through an innovative hybrid capital structure.

two vehicles, one strategy

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velocity

/vəˈläsədē/

speed in a direction

catalyst

/ˈkætəlɪst/

a person or thing that causes a change

Velocity Catalyst is not an impact fund. We are catalytic capital, accelerating resources for the next generation of Chicago & Illinois scaled businesses and seeking industry leading returns for our investors.

velocity Catalyst fund

“Velocity” will be a $50M hyper regional hybrid fund designed to expand access to capital at the riskiest layer of the capital stack, ensuring both emerging funds and startups in our region's most critical industries reach the traction they need to attract the additional funding required to scale.

It’s part Fund of Funds, part Direct Pre-Seed, and 100% for Illinois.

Fund of Funds

By writing $1M-$5M anchor checks for Chicago/IL based emerging fund managers in targeted industries, we aim to accelerate their closes and catalyze up to $600M in early-stage funding, headquartered in IL. As the largest destination for early-stage capital, we will increase our likelihood of attracting, retaining, and scaling high potential startups and founders from across the Midwest.

Direct Pre-Seed

By directly investing in our state’s highest potential Pre-Seed founders in critical industries to our region, we aim to accelerate startups’ traction, improve the likelihood of follow-on funding, and catalyze the job growth that comes when companies scale. At the same time, generating economic prosperity for early investors, founders, and the communities in which they operate.

Fund of Funds portfolio strategy

The data is clear, thesis-driven, industry focused emerging GPs managing <$50M outperform some of the most recognized legacy venture funds. By investing only in emerging funds that specialize in the most important Midwest industries, we believe our portfolio fund managers have the best possible chance of creating longterm firms...not just one time funds...that create network effects, brand recognition, and attract the best founders from across the country. All of which allows Velocity to reach its own alpha.

Pre-Seed portfolio strategy

Pre-Seed is the hardest stage for IL founders to access local capital, and it is the stage that can ​produce the highest multiples for early investors. Velocity will deploy $250K checks into Pre-​Seed startups in the same industries as our portfolio of fund of funds, ensuring that our ​venture firms have a pipeline of venture-backable founders when they’re ready to deploy ​capital and that our state never misses another unicorn. And, we’ll reserve half of our direct ​capital to double down on the best performing startups across the entire portfolio of startups ​(estimated 400+) from our own investments and those of our portfolio funds.

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velocity evergreen

Velocity Evergreen is the philanthropic counterpart to Velocity Catalyst. It provides funding for both proven and pilot programming to help advance an inclusive venture ecosystem in Illinois.

Why Velocity Evergreen

Evergreen funds have an investment strategy that allow non-profit dollars to grow over time, increasing the pool of capital available for philanthropic purposes. With Velocity Evergreen, we can fund support programming for overlooked founders, funders, and industries for generations to come.

how it works

Philanthropic donations, ​DAF Transfers, Foundation ​Grants, etc.

LP INVESTMENT

velocity evergreen

velocity catalyst

LP RETURNS

Founder & Emerging Fund ​Manager Support & ​Programming

funding to support efforts like:

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Our beliefs

Ambitious builders require ambitious capital to reach outsized results.

Talent is universal, opportunity is not. Velocity aspires to make entrepreneurial opportunity as universal in Chicago & IL as we know our talent is.

Team

Desiree Vargas Wrigley

Founding GP

Personal Portfolio

Desiree Vargas Wrigley is a Chicago Latina serial founder turned funder. Most recently she serves as CIO of P33, Founder & Executive Director of TechRise by P33, and a founding partner of The Josephine Collective, an angel group focused on welcoming women and people of color into the venture asset class, where she has led 20 Pre-Seed and Seed investments since 2022. She is an LP in a FinTech fund and serves on the Chicago steering committee for All Raise.

At P33, she has sourced over 700 early-stage IL startups, welcoming more than 300 BIPOC and Women Founders to the TechRise stage, who have gone on to raise over $110M in follow-on funding in less than 3 years. She helped secure a multimillion dollar federal grant from the MBDA and launched SpeedRound, the Capital Summit, and the CommonAPP. Previously, she founded Pearachute, a children’s activity marketplace. Desiree’s first startup, GiveForward, was the world’s first peer to peer crowdfunding platform launched in 2008. She has raised capital from some of the best early stage investors including First Round Capital, Founder Collective, and Techstars Ventures. Under her leadership, GiveForward transacted nearly $200M.

After graduating from Yale, Desiree worked at the Kauffman Foundation as a specialist in entrepreneurship and at Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors. She taught New Venture Discovery at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Desiree has been named Inc's 30 Under 30, Crain's 40 Under 40, one of Parents Magazine's Most Inspiring Moms, one of Forbes Women to Watch, and has appeared on Shark Tank, closing one of the largest deals on the show to date. When not working, she enjoys spending time with her 2 sons, stepdaughter, and crime-fighting husband.

investment advisors

In addition to our investments team, Velocity has industry experts on our Investment Advisory Board, contributing their knowledge and insights into our investment decisions. In exchange for their time and guidance, we’ll share part of the collective upside of the fund. If you’re interested in being considered, apply below.

By “Missed” we mean that Illinois investors either missed the opportunity to invest early in these startups, or these startups never raised early-stage capital from local investors because they didn’t believe they could or were wealthy enough to self-fund. Either way, IL investors missed realizing meaningful returns that could have been recycled into our venture economy. We estimate it could be as much as $2 Billion we missed out on locally. And we project we’ll miss another $7.5B over the next decade, given our current rate of export.

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