BigTime hit the big time this week with $100 million in funding and no we aren’t any smarter than that — it is a Friday in January and we’re under 4 feet of snow what could you possibly expect from us?? Anyway the company makes time tracking and invoicing software for professional services firms, and plans to use some of the money to hire for both its Chicago and Phoenix offices.
No matter how dumb our jokes, we’ll never be dumber than the actual news, which today tells us that BlockFills has raised $37 million to help people trade crypto and other digital assets.
It’s enough to make us excited about Formic’s $26.5 million funding round. The year-old company offers rentable robots for manufacturers looking to test out automation. Formic will use the money to hire people and expand.
Also real: Our drinking habits! The pandemic push to digitize helped Provi raise $75 million to bring alcohol retailers and distributors together in an online marketplace. Now, the Chicago-based company is planning to merge with New York-based SevenFifty’s similar solution, hoping to create a true one-stop shop. Both companies are hiring.
In the physical world, people just cannot figure out whether or not they want to be in offices. Cameo is rethinking its fully distributed stance after seeing outbound calls go up dramatically when salespeople were being watched in a glass-walled office instead of working from home. This call-center-esque, sales-heavy work probably does benefit from surveillance, which may be why Allstate and Vivid Seats are both looking to open new Loop headquarters. We, personally, will be staying right here in a full sweatsuit indefinitely.
And allow us a personal moment of hope around the news that the Sun-Times is being purchased by WBEZ. This newsletter came out of the wreckage left by maybe the grossest version of the Sun-Times, a paper that has also been owned by Rupert Murdoch. There’s no nostalgia for that time, but there is a great deal of desire to see the Sun-Times realize some of its potential, and moving to non-profit ownership might just make it possible. There’s even talk of hiring, an almost unfathomable turn of events after watching every photographer in the building get walked out the door.
Maybe this really will be the year.
Jobs, Glorious Jobs
Corporate Communications Specialist at Gallagher
A good position for a newish grad with a team of people we like a lot at one of the longest-running clients of our digital agency.
Managing Editor, Digital at Crain’s Chicago Business
On the one hand, not a publication known for its digital innovation. On the other, one of the better funded media outlets in Chicago. And you’d really be helping us out if you make the digital experience even a fraction better.
Inspiration of the week
“On a very basic level, the systems just … suck”
This is us, recommending that you spend more than two hours of your one wild and precious life watching a white man talk into a camera about cryptocurrency and NFTs. Embarrassing. But, as fellow hustler and Italic Type founder Emily Achler put it: “If you were confused and thought something didn’t seem right but weren’t sure and maybe you’re wrong cause everyone is doing it — it’s reassuring to know that in fact you are right. NFTs, Web3, and crypto are not the answer to saving democracy and economic equality.”
The full video is a surprisingly engaging run through our economic nightmare from mortgage-backed securities to Elon Musk. But if you need the Cliffs Notes version, well, the systems are made by people. And the people, they suck.
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