[brosephius]

not much of a vc scene compared to SF/NY, weather sucks almost half the year, and chicago is generally underrated as a place to live for various reasons.

a lot of it is chicken and egg - the top talent doesn't see chicago as a place to go to achieve your startup dreams so they don't come here, and chicago won't be that place until people come here. groupon - meh. barely a tech company in my opinion, and (correct me if I'm wrong) smart, ambitious, top-notch coders aren't really banging down their door for a software engineering job.

that being said, lightbank now has plenty of money to spread around, and there is an incubator or two to get things going. can't do much about the weather though.