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Inside Chicago:Blend's mission to bring more diverse voices into venture capital
Chicago:Blend is changing how Chicago’s startup investors of tomorrow navigate the city’s VC scene.
Depending on who you are, you may see three different sides of the Chicago VC ecosystem. From one vantage point, there is a clear path filled with connections and simple access to resources. From another, though you have an idea of the requirements and expectations, the journey is foggy and full of uncertainties. Lastly, there is invisibility, where access to the city’s venture ecosystem is a total black box, forcing some to question whether they belong in the industry at all.
Joey Mak (pictured, right), CEO of Chicago:Blend, a non-profit working to create a more inclusive venture capital and entrepreneurial ecosystem, understands this predicament for aspiring venture capitalists — especially those who come from non-traditional backgrounds. Mak, a son of two first-generation Cambodian immigrants and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, is looking to change how Chicago’s startup investors of tomorrow navigate the city’s VC scene.
Chicago:Blend’s story began before Mak officially joined in 2021. Founded in 2018 by a local group of venture capitalists led by Lindsay Knight, Chicago:Blend rooted its early work in data, seeking to understand who was getting funded, who was writing checks, who was missing from the room.
Momentum kicked in following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Mak said. It was that moment when Chicago:Blend decided to become a 501(c)(3), raise some money, and bring someone onboard to figure out what structured programming needed to look like.
For Chicago:Blend, the right person was Mak. Working for the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce at the time, Mak joined Chicago:Blend in 2021 with deep experiences in economic development and civic innovations. Mak didn’t come from the world of venture capital, but he knew that the bottleneck comes down not to a lack of talent but often a lack of opportunity.
“I've spent much of my career in rooms that weren't designed with me in mind — and more often than not, as the only person there who shared my background,” Mak said. “That's a common experience for a lot of people we serve at Chicago:Blend.”
Chicago:Blend’s mission today is to build a more inclusive venture capital and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Chicagoland through data, community and talent. Their flagship program, the Chicago:Blend Venture Fellowship, selects two cohorts of ten fellows each year to undergo their intense workshops. Fellows move through finance training, get placed at VC firm where they source deals and conduct diligence, network with VC investors, and participate in the capstone event known as BlendTalks, where each graduating Fellow delivers a talk about a VC topic or trend to more than 100 investors, tech leaders, and community partners.
Beyond VC training, the result is visibility and exposure – crucial to building a career in VC but often missing from traditional pathways. Now in its 9th cohort, the fellowship is on track to have served 100 fellows by the end of year. Since 2022, Chicago:Blend’s fellows have sourced over 1,00 startup companies and helped 23 secure funding, more than half of which had at least one underrepresented co-founder.
“Part of our thesis is that if we have more diverse check writers, you’re going to see that flowing to underrepresented founders, which has certainly been true among our Fellows” Mak said. “We know that folks who are diverse and have more diverse networks will have visibility to new opportunities that mainstream venture capital isn't seeing.”
For their thesis to work, Chicago:Blend also needed a physical place where networks could actually intersect. The solution was found in TeamWorking by TechNexus.
To Mak, TeamWorking created an environment focused on “collaboration” that can change what was possible for a two-person nonprofit with a budget under half a million dollars. From universities and K-12 schools to nonprofits and corporate partners, TeamWorking became the home of what Mak called a “beautiful cross section of the Chicago tech community.”
With their latest program, Venture Club 101, set to debut in July 2026, Chicago:Blend is bringing that collaborative model to Illinois undergraduates, guiding them through the hidden pathways of venture capital before the industry becomes another closed door.
Access to capital (and to VC jobs) has always favored the already-connected. But Chicago:Blend exists, Mak said, to “bring more clarity and visibility” to an industry that can often seem gray, like “cloudiness and fogginess.” Its mission is not just opening doors, but guiding underrepresented communities to see those doors clearly enough to walk through them with strength and confidence.
In rooms where aspiring investors and undergraduates take the mic, the fog begins to clear.
By Alex Chen at TechNexus Venture Collaborative