Lakewest Venture Partners
VC Fund
Chicago, United States
Lakewest Venture Partners is an affiliate of Lakewest, Inc., a real estate and private equity company. In its first several years, Lakewest's investments and participation in companies ranged from passive interest at $50,000-$100,000 to lead seed-stage investments in excess of $1,000,000 with board involvement. Since partnering with Dundee Venture Capital, Lakewest and Dundee now look to make lead seed-stage investments from $250,000-$750,000 in high-growth, early-stage technology companies. It is led by Buzz Ruttenberg, David Mann, and Jonathan McCulloch and was formed in 2013 to pursue seed and early-stage investment opportunities primarily in Chicago.
- Total investments:
- 32
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 0%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Lakewest Venture Partners invests in
Stages Lakewest Venture Partners invests in
Countries Lakewest Venture Partners invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Round size
- Seed
- $923k–$1.7M
- Series A
- $1M–$7.5M
- Series B
- $6.2M–$22M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Mobile 5 (16%)
- E-Commerce 5 (16%)
- Software 3 (9%)
- Shoes 2 (6%)
- Fashion 2 (6%)
Stage
- Series A 12 (38%)
- Seed 10 (31%)
- Series B 2 (6%)
- Funding Round 2 (6%)
- Debt Financing 1 (3%)
Country
- United States 19 (59%)
- Canada 1 (3%)
Team
| Name | Title | Investments | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
David Mann
Principal
|
Principal | Total investments: 8 | Find email | |
David Ruttenberg
President
|
President | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Jonathan McCulloch
Co-Founder and Principal
|
Co-Founder and Principal | Total investments: 3 | Find email |
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Realvision is an immersive media technology company that builds 3D media solutions for the real estate industry. Realvision is a technology platform built to support real estate agents, created for professional photographers. | $1.5M / Seed / Mar 15, 2017 | ||
| AddStructure offer a white-labeled natural language understanding (NLU) platform that Retailers and Brands can use to enable conversational commerce channels. Each day, millions of consumers interact with AddStructure's products: Signal Search, Path, and Scaffold. Applications of their technology range from review summarization (distillingthousands of reviews of a product into digestible pros and cons) to a complete conversational commerce system (chatting with an intelligent digital assistant to find and purchase products). | $1.9M / Seed / Feb 27, 2017 | ||
| XOR Data Exchange is a data revolution by providing data owners with the accountability, control, and transparency they want to share data and solve industry challenges with confidence. Developed by data, technology and analytics experts, the company helps organizations optimize and monetize the data they possess, with data from other companies intheir industry as well as other industries.XOR Data Exchange was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States. | $2M / Venture - Series Unknown / Feb 03, 2017 | ||
| Align Income Share Funding, formerly Cumulus Funding, is to invest in the American worker. Many people in this country need access to funds for many different reasons. They recognize that in many cases, traditional banks and lenders are unwilling or unable to meet those individuals’ needs. When loans are available, they are made at terms that areextremely favorable to the banks — high and inflexible interest payments, multiple hidden fees and service charges, and often, a requirement that if you can’t make your payments the bank can come and take your personal assets that were pledged as collateral. | Series A / Mar 01, 2016 | ||
| Blitsy is where creative people shop online. It aims to provide the best selection, value, inspiration, and online shopping experience for creative people worldwide. It was founded in 2011 and is based in Chicago, Illinois. | $6.2M / Series B / Jan 25, 2016 | ||
| Shiftgig is a technology company that helps staffing agencies transform the way people work.Our flagship digital staffing software, Deploy, helps staffing firms empower their workforce to browse and claim work that fit their skills and schedules. We also give agencies deep insights into their clients and workers, allowing you to focus onstrategic growth and coaching by eliminating repetitive tasks of running day-to-day operations. To learn more, visit shiftgig.com. | $22M / Series B / Nov 24, 2015 | ||
| Bucketfeet is a direct-to-consumer shoe brand that allows artists to create shoe designs and prints them on sneakers once ordered online. Each pair of BucketFeet is designed by a different artist. Find curated inspiration that connects you with the artists that design them. It collaborates with a global community of artists to designlimited-edition shoes with the goal of sparking meaningful conversations to create a brighter world.Through a responsive commerce model, Bucketfeet is disrupting traditional manufacturing cycles and redefining the $300B footwear industry, letting the company community select styles they’d like to purchase and wear to help inform demand. It empowers artists to share their stories and perspectives using the universal language of art and the shoe as their canvas.Bucketfeet was founded in 2011 by Raaja Nemani and Aaron Firestein and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, USA. | $7.5M / Series A / Oct 27, 2015 | ||
| XOR Data Exchange is a data revolution by providing data owners with the accountability, control, and transparency they want to share data and solve industry challenges with confidence. Developed by data, technology and analytics experts, the company helps organizations optimize and monetize the data they possess, with data from other companies intheir industry as well as other industries.XOR Data Exchange was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States. | $4.2M / Series A / Sep 10, 2015 | ||
| Popular Pays is a platform connecting content creators with brands who want the content to tell their stories. It is a tech company, with an in-house built iOS app and dashboard that delivers direct communication, workflow tools, and powerful statistics. | $2M / Series A / Jul 23, 2015 | ||
| Packback is a social learning platform powered by a proprietary A.I. that college professors use to help their students fall in love with the subject matter, drive personalized learning, and most importantly, quantify and improve critical thinking skills. | $1.5M / Seed / Jun 09, 2015 | ||
| See all 32 investments → | |||
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FAQ
What does Lakewest Venture Partners invest in?
Lakewest Venture Partners invests primarily in Mobile, E-Commerce and Software startups, most often at Series A and Seed stage. Most of the 32 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What round sizes does Lakewest Venture Partners invest in?
Lakewest Venture Partners typically joins rounds of $923k–$1.7M at Seed, $1M–$7.5M at Series A and $6.2M–$22M at Series B. These are whole funding-round sizes, not Lakewest Venture Partners's own check, which is rarely disclosed: the 10th–90th percentile of the confirmed public funding rounds Lakewest Venture Partners took part in.
How do I contact Lakewest Venture Partners?
Public channels for Lakewest Venture Partners include LinkedIn and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
Who are the partners at Lakewest Venture Partners?
The team at Lakewest Venture Partners includes David Mann (Principal), David Ruttenberg (President) and Jonathan McCulloch (Co-Founder and Principal). The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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