VITALIZE Venture Capital

Happy New Year from VITALIZE!!! Best wishes to our friends, founders, and investors for a wonderful 2026. ✨✨✨

🚀 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗼 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 — 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴! 2026 is shaping up to be our biggest year yet. As demand for dementia care navigation continues to accelerate across all 𝟱𝟬 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀, we’re expanding our team to support patients, families, and partners nationwide. If you—or someone in your network—is passionate about building the future of dementia care, we’d love to talk. 🩺 𝟭. 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 / 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗿 A rare leadership opportunity for a clinician who wants to blend medicine, technology, and innovation. Help shape a national dementia care model, guide clinical strategy, and collaborate with an incredible team. 🤝 𝟮. 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 (𝗕𝟮𝗕) Play a pivotal role supporting our senior-living, health-plan, and care-delivery partners. If you enjoy building relationships and helping organizations deliver better care, this role is for you. 📊 𝟯. 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲 Join the operational core of Tembo and help execute our revenue cycle with accuracy, speed, and heart. Perfect for someone who thrives in a fast-growing, mission-driven environment. If you’re excited about transforming dementia care—or know someone who is—please reach out or share these roles. Tembo Health JD links in the comments below. 💙 Let’s build something meaningful together.

This Thanksgiving, we're grateful to Forbes and Ilona L. for the opportunity to share Onton's vision for the future of online shopping. Our recent Seed round is fuel for this mission: making online shopping work in a way that it should in an AI-native world. Big thanks to Mike Smith & Nikhil Basu Trivedi @Footwork, Anne Lee Skates @Parable, Nikki Farb @Power of N, Matthew Mulvey & Nathaniel Montana @Liquid 2 Ventures, Soso Sazesh @43, Elizabeth Yin @Hustle Fund, Taylor Brandt, and all the other incredible angels and operators who have supported us so far. When retail started transitioning online in the 90s and became what we know today as "e-commerce", it accomplished one important thing: it gave people access. Suddenly, millions of people could browse and check out across the millions of products out there. But as the market has grown over the last 30 years, the way we interact with it hasn't. And then this new technology called Large Language Models arrives and moves us a step closer to helping shoppers with "intent". But even with all the impressive feats and usefulness of LLMs and the first widespread interfaces for interacting with them like ChatGPT, these models compound the pain points of e-commerce, and what we've seen is that the average time it takes a shopper to make a decision is increasing, not decreasing. Why? Our bet is that e-commerce needs something entirely new. Not something that iterates on existing (and already broken) methods. Something that can take a shopper from discovery to browsing, to consideration, to decision making — effortlessly and with technology that elicits trust, not undermines it. Shoutout to my co-founder Alex Gunnarson and the incredible team who have worked tirelessly to bring this vision to life (Aditri, Gemma, Josephine, Karuna, Katarzyna, Molly, Sophia, Zachary). Onton has already helped millions of people find their perfect product, and we're just getting started. We have some truly category-defining things rolling out soon that I can't wait to share. Like/comment and tell us what you're looking forward to the most? What are your biggest pain points in e-commerce that OpenAI, Google, and others aren't solving?

Thank you Business Insider and Sydney Bradley for sharing our story, including a first look at the pitch deck behind our $4M seed round. This article highlights the problem we’re solving: Professionals are more digitally connected than ever, yet maintaining meaningful relationships has never felt harder. Goodword is building a networking copilot that helps you stay close to the people who matter — by organizing your relationships, surfacing the right connections at the right time, and keeping the human at the center. Full article at the link in comments. Photo by Alena Kostromina.

We have so much to learn from Gale Wilkinson - with her intentional choices and rich portfolio life she has created for herself. She's a founder (of VITALIZE Venture Capital, IrishAngels, Gale Loves Dogs) and investor - has started businesses and helps advise early stage and startup organizations she invests in - and has invested in 150+ companies, deploying ~ $80M in capital. Gale is also a founding Board member of Chicago:Blend, an organization focused on increasing diversity in VC and startups in Chicago.    We are thrilled Gale is joining us for the next CAP STRAT Women's Forum event to share her journey of rich experiences, entrepreneurial successes and failures, and canine loves, heartbreaks and rescues. This non-linear path has resulted in the creation of a life in which she has made meaningful contributions and impacts in both the business and broader personal and canine communities she touches.   Learn from and be inspired by Gale and are other speakers, Kate Bensen and Lori Igleski, all of whom are creating rich portfolio lives embracing their freedom to make choices that serve them, and fulfill them in ways they are seeking versus compromising in ways that move them out of alignment with their purpose.   JOIN US ON ZOOM - RSVP & GET DETAILS: https://lnkd.in/gwM2BPxU 🔹 THE VALUE OF CREATING A PORTFOLIO LIFE 🔹 Wednesday, October 15th 🔹 11:30am - 12:30pm CT 🔹 Breakout sessions for networking after program Nancy Rizzuto and the rest of our SageView Advisory Group colleagues are looking forward to seeing you on zoom!

Who’s going to SF for Disrupt next month? If you’re attending, be sure to catch Chicago:Blend board member Gale Wilkinson of VITALIZE Venture Capital on Oct. 29. Discounted tix are available now! 👇

Big news! I’m now live on Intro. ✨ I’ve led 200+ early-stage investments and deployed $80M+ across funds, syndicates, and angel deals. Now, I’m opening up 1:1 calls to help founders, operators, and investors get tactical, honest advice. If you’re navigating your first raise, thinking about going the VC route, or need guidance on early stage startup strategy - I can help. ✔️ Fundraising (pre-seed & seed) ✔️ VC vs non-VC path ✔️ Founder/employee equity & cap tables ✔️ Startup boards ✔️ Launching a fund or angel group ✔️ Getting into venture ...and more The best thing? 100% of my proceeds are donated to my dog rescue, Gale Loves Dogs so you can get help and save dogs at the same time! I'm honored to be an expert on Intro alongside the founders of Reddit, Inc., Zillow, Drybar, and many more. The link to book is in the first comment.

📣 VITALIZE Venture Capital portfolio companies are growing fast & hiring. See below for a sample of the roles you can apply for directly from the company's LinkedIn/Jobs page: Abstract - Senior Data Engineer, Senior Full Stack Engineer AllVoices - Enterprise Account Executive Aunt Flow - Account Executive Balloon - Sr. Back-End Engineer, UX + Design CloudEagle.ai - Senior Account Executive-Customer Growth Leadsales - Integration & Automation Engineer MarginEdge - Director of Partnerships, Product Marketing Manager myCOI - Junior Sales Account Executive, Compliance Coordinator Placer.ai - Systems and Data Operations Manager, Senior Full Stack Engineer Rebolt - Senior Product Designer, Customer Support & Operations Specialist SquarePeg - Chief of Staff, Accounting Operations Manager Tembo Health - Operations (Director / VP), Product Operations Manager The Mom Project - 170+ job postings!! Upwards - Event Engagement Coordinator Upwave - AdTech Sales Specialist – Agency Partnerships Vela- Community Ambassador Violet - Provider Activation Specialist, Customer Success Manager Virtual Sapiens - Chief of Staff, Senior Back End Developer/Architect Zingtree - SaaS Solutions Architect (Post Sales Implementation), Strategic Account Executive Thanks to Jenny Fielding's recent post for the inspiration to share some of our open roles at VITALIZE companies! ✨

Starting a founder journey can feel intimidating. Gale Wilkinson of VITALIZE Venture Capital recently shared five questions she asks every founder at the beginning of their journey. Being able to answer these questions can help you shape your strategy, refine your story, and stay aligned with your long-term goals. Check them out here: https://lnkd.in/g5rYxzxm

It pays to post about strong candidates seeking roles and great companies hiring. You just need one person to see it to make a match, assuming it's a great fit. Here's my latest to share: One of our portcos is hiring a head of partnerships. Location can be Atlanta, LA, or remote (US only). *Must* have experience leading partnerships at a tech startup. The hiring company is growing very, very fast - this is an amazing opportunity for the right candidate! DM me for more info / an intro. ✨