[marothisu]

Chicago software firm raises $20 million

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/fina...ses-20-million

Backstop Solutions, a Chicago-based company with 220 employees, has attracted $20 million in new financing from investors with industry experience.

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Backstop has been building its business selling software to institutional and alternative investors like family offices, foundations, hedge funds, endowments and pension funds since it was founded in 2003. Co-founder Clint Coghill, a former hedge fund manager, is the company’s CEO and chairman.

The $20 million infusion follows a year in which Backstop’s client roster rose to 800 institutional and alternative investment firms, from the low to mid 700s previously, spokesman Robert Baumann said.

Backstop also has offices in New York, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong. Baumann declined to say whether the private company is currently profitable or to specify its annual revenue.

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U of I joins U of C quantum computing partnership

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/john...ng-partnership

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is teaming up with the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab on quantum computing research.

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U of I, which has its own quantum research effort underway in Urbana-Champaign, is joining U of C’s Chicago Quantum Exchange, which also includes the two national labs. The partnership announced today by U of C and U of I would bring together a nucleus of more than 100 scientists and engineers at a time when quantum computing is starting to attract money and attention. A potential pool of $1.3 billion in federal research funding looks good to cash-starved research universities.