Cristin Pacifico @ TechNexus on Early-Stage Operating, Chicago vs. Silicon Valley, Outdoor Recreation Startups, and Paths to Venture
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“The Chicago ecosystem is unlike any other ecosystem because there is a collision of different things happening and it’s a city of industry. It is one of the most diverse environments anywhere in the U.S. in terms of big companies that have come in and established their roots, for a very long time.”
Cristin Pacifico is a Manager at TechNexus Venture Collaborative, a Venture Collaborative that combines businesses, corporate joint-ventures, private equity funds, and a startup investment portfolio. Given the fund structure at TechNexus, Cristin spends a large amount of her time strategically thinking about how startups and large corporations can work together and find synergies. She focuses on direct-to-consumer and e-commerce business, marine and outdoor recreation, and diversity, inclusion, & impact investing.
Prior to TechNexus, Cristin worked in a variety of operating and investing roles. She was an early employee at Home Chef, where she worked on the finance team and was able to help steer the company through its merger with Kroger. Before her time at Home Chef, she started out as an investment banker at Robert W. Baird. She worked primarily on the sell-side M&A team with industrial companies, similar to some of the corporate partners that she now works with today at TechNexus.
Cristin graduated from Notre Dame and during her time there, she co-founded a microlending-non profit called JIFFI, which she still serves on the board of today.
Cristin spoke with Matt about the Chicago investing ecosystem, her experience at HomeChef, the exciting verticals she’s seeing in the outdoor & recreation industry, and other 2021 trends.
Please Enjoy!
You can find Cristin on LinkedIn & on Twitter and TechNexus Venture Collaborative on their website.
Cristin’s article on
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Fertido.
Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired. Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.
