Angel Curious?
Are you angel curious and interested in learning more about early-stage investing? Are you a seasoned angel and interested in meeting more of your fellow investors? If so, please join us for the inaugural Lofty Angels Summit, hosted at Bank of America’s beautiful downtown Chicago office on Monday, August 11th, 2025 for a full day of informative sessions, actionable insights, and plenty of opportunities to build relationships with fellow investors. Are you a founder of a post-Seed stage startup and interested in dipping your toe into early-stage investing (founders: apply here for 70% off)
Brilliant People, Invaluable Knowledge
& Memorable Experiences
The summit will feature 18 speakers including authors, angel investors, business school professors, VCs, founders, and corporate supporters, who have collectively backed, advised and/or built hundreds of early-stage startups. We will provide a light breakfast at check-in, boxed lunches, and snacks throughout the day. We will also be screening the premiere of a short film Lofty Ventures co-produced with Misfits Labs, Lofty City: The Rise of Chicago’s Tech Community, which includes interviews with local tech leaders, such as Mike Evans, Founder of Grubhub. We will cap off the day with an afterparty in the building’s epic indoor/outdoor space overlooking the Chicago River, with gorgeous views of the Loop’s skyline. We will welcome electronic musician and recording artist, Com Truise to perform a private DJ set while we mingle with over a hundred members of the Chicago startup community.
ATTENTION FOUNDERS
Apply For 70% Off Discount
We are excited to welcome startup founders who would like to attend the summit, provided your startup is in the post-Seed stage and your intent is to learn about angel investing, not to solicit attendees for angel investments. If this sounds like you, then apply here to receive a 70% off discount. A central goal of Lofty Angels is to enable more founders to learn angel investing earlier in their careers, and this summit is specifically designed with founders in mind. We will be hosting a panel with all founders-turned-angels to share why they decided to begin angel investing and how it has benefited them thus far in their entrepreneurial journeys.
About the Organizer
Angel investor Christopher Deutsch built Lofty Ventures to holistically support the 180+ founders at 100 startups he has personally backed, 80% of which are in Chicago and 75% are led by underrepresented founders. Over the past decade, it has evolved into the Lofty Family, which is a growing community of Chicago’s most passionate founders building our city’s next generation of disruptive startups, a supportive partner ecosystem, XiRs who provide mentorship and guidance, and angel investors who financially back them. Lofty’s giver-centric community is bound by the common thread of amazing people with the vision and purpose to drive entrepreneurship and economic development in Chicago and beyond. Lofty Angels, a signature program for Lofty Ventures, is focused on open-sourcing early-stage investing knowledge to help support the collective of angel investors locally and globally.
Lofty Angels Summit – Monday, August 11th, 2025
Bank of America building @ 110 North Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL
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Agenda
10:30 - 11:00 – Check-in, Light Breakfast & Mingle
11:00 - 11:15 – Welcome & Opening Remarks
Jamie Paul
Christopher Deutsch
11:15 - 12:00 – Fireside Chat with Q&A
Mark Achler
Christopher Deutsch
12:00 - 12:30 – Angel Investing 101 with Q&A
Christopher Deutsch
12:30 - 1:30 – Lunch
1:30 - 2:15 – Founder Angels Panel
Christian McKenzie
(moderator)
Luisa Castellanos
Cheryl Kemp
Nilay Parikh
Matt Singley
2:15 - 3:00 – Chicago Angel Groups & Syndicates Panel
Jonathan Ellis
(moderator)
Brian Crump
Maria Racho
Amy Rosenow
3:00 - 3:15 – Break
3:15 - 4:00 – Angel Talks
Mike Gamson
Amanda Lannert
Jeff Eschbach
4:00 - 4:30 – Premiere Screening of Lofty City: The Rise of Chicago’s Tech Community
Erikc Perez-Perez
4:30 - 5:00 – Closing Remarks
Steven Shaw
Atif Rafiq
Christopher Deutsch
5:00 - 7:30 – Happy Hour & Lofty Rooftop Summer Party with Special Guest Com Truise
Com Truise
Speakers
Lofty Angels is a part of Lofty Ventures. Want to learn more about how you can get involved with Lofty’s exclusive community as a founder, fellow, XiR, partner, or angel investor?