J.B. Pritzker on the Chicago Venture Summit


On the ABC reality show "Shark Tank," aspiring entrepreneurs sell their ideas to a panel of potential investors- the "sharks." Beginning tomorrow night, 30 entrepreneurs from Chicago and around the Midwest will pitch their own companies to investors from across the country at the Chicago Venture Summit. ChicagoNEXT, which is chaired by J.B. Pritzker, organized the summit. Pritzker joins Chicago Tonight host Phil Ponce to speak about the summit.


Marc GrabowskiMarc Grabowski, CEO of Iris Mobile will be one of the presenters at the Chicago Venture Summit. Read an interview about the company and learn more about Iris Mobile.

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Q: What is Iris Mobile?

We offer a software platform that allows brands to customize their advertisements. We consider our service, mobile relationship management. There’s an existing category called customer relationship management (CRM). CRM helps you understand more about customers like their interests, behavior, etc... That’s our focus but specifically for mobile devices or mobile relationship management (MRM).

Q: Explain how mobile relationship management works.

We help companies understand more about their customers. Customers provide their numbers to the brands, and the company gets back to them through mobile messaging. The messaging could include videos, coupons, etc... In return, the customers are getting something of great value. Depending on the customers’ responses, there will be a path leading them to a purchase. It’s going to be something very relevant. When you tailor your advertisements to the needs of the customer, the advertiser will get a better response and the customer will have a better relationship with the brand.

Q: What is your involvement in the Chicago Venture Summit?

I will be speaking at the Chicago Venture Summit on Wednesday and sharing a bit about the company. We found out about the summit through our investors. They suggested we take advantage of the summit as a networking opportunity to meet other investors and individuals who want to get to know Iris Mobile as a business, and we’re happy to be involved. While we aren’t currently raising a round, it’s always a great opportunity to meet with people in the space and have the opportunity to share our story.

Q: Are you guys looking for investment at the summit? How would you use it?

Currently, we are not raising capital. We are, however, focusing on hiring engineers – front end (UI / UX), data scientists and back end engineers for API / CRM integrations in order to further develop our product and provide the best value for our customers.

Interview has been condensed and edited.

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