A Chicago family with deep ties to the food industry has welcomed outside investors and raised a $45 million fund.
Bluestein Ventures grew out of the family investment office launched 10 years ago by Andrew Bluestein and his parents, consulting-industry veteran Bram Bluestein and former Ingredion CEO Ilene Gordon.
It's Bluestein’s third fund. As a family office, Bluestein quietly became one of the most active investors in the food industry, piling up more than 40 deals — including Factor 75, Foxtrot, Chowly, Provi, QualSights and FourKites.
The best-known investment is Factor 75, a prepared-meal startup in Batavia, Illinois, that was bought in 2020 by European competitor HelloFresh for $277 million.
“We saw an opportunity because consumers were changing their consumption habits, and the industry was starting to digitize,” said Andrew Bluestein, a former consultant who runs the fund’s day-to-day operations with Ashely Hartman. “And with Chicago being a major hub for food, we saw an opportunity to get involved.”
Bluestein expects to do about five deals a year or 20 to 25 investments over the life of the fund. It's an early-stage investor that typically writes checks of $500,000 to $1.5 million.
“They’re really valuable for the ecosystem,” said Ira Weiss, a partner at Hyde Park Ventures, which invested alongside Bluestein in FourKites, a logistics software company. “It’s thoughtful and strategic capital. It’s also patient capital.”
Bluestein is one of several Chicago venture funds that started out as family offices, such as Origin Ventures, or multiple family offices, including OCA Ventures and Jump Capital.
Bluestein officials say the outside investors include strategic partners, family offices, executives and entrepreneurs that have experience in the food space, but they declined to name them.
Hartman said it was oversubscribed. That’s a good sign at a time when it’s become harder to raise new venture capital funds. Fundraising fell to a six-year low last year, according to PitchBook, as a lack of acquisitions and public offerings choked off return of capital to fund investors.