I stumbled upon this interesting resource called freshwate venture. Short details about startup (or not anymore :-) companies - primary I see in Chicago area, but anyway - the list includes details about them, founders and funding.
Editors of this resource are Eric Antonow and Keith Schacht. This is what they say about them:
We began with the idea that there were perhaps 40-50 ventures to profile, but have been surprised to discover dozens of companies as we poke around. Nearly every day someone tells us about a firm we hadn't heard about.The backstories are particularly interesting: the founders and their odd paths, the origin of the idea, how they got it started, and where they scratched together the funding to launch.
In all, this is just about restating facts. We have remarkable goings around Chicago (and some great entrepreneurial history) but we've been pathetic storytellers. If successful, this project will give a sense of mass and provide a better view unto data was already here.
In the next month we're going to extend this to another experiment -- maybe provide some very, very early stage funding for the area. But one thing at a time.
I've been living in Chicago, but I didn't see it to be very entrepreneurial from the first sight. However, as I did get deeper into that, I found out that there are pretty many of startups over there. The biggest (hugest!) difference from usual West Coast startups is that Chicogians prefer to fund their businesses themself. I appreciate that and I like it. The reason is that they are building "business model" of the business, but not just wanting to sell it fast and cash out :-)