Opening Words
Fall quarter at Midway is always a sprint, and this quarter was no exception. From onboarding a fresh cohort of 13 new members, diving deep into intensive work with our engagements, to spearheading the nationwide expansion of the Midway Collective, the past few months of Fall have been about building momentum and leveling up. Here is a detailed look at what we have been up to across our engagements, events, and national expansion.
National Expansion
Midway is officially going national. One of the most exciting initiatives this quarter has been the expansion of Midway Ventures into a national collective. Our vision is to build the first structured national platform where undergraduates across the country interested in venture capital and entrepreneurship can experiment with building, thinking, and developing a conviction even before deciding to become a founder. Midway Ventures UChicago is proud to have launched our first strategic partnership with the University of Washington this past Fall. We are now actively collaborating with UCLA and Rutgers University to grow the Midway Collective. This is just the beginning of our mission to scale Midway’s impact across the country.
To find out more about the development of the Midway Collective, you can visit the following website: https://www.midwaycollective.org/
Engagements Recap
We had the privilege of working with three amazing startups this Fall quarter:
Perspectives Health
Perspectives Health is an AI-powered clinical documentation platform built specifically for the mental health sector. Their core product is a browser extension that records patient conversations and automatically generates comprehensive clinical notes, populating them directly into any web-based Electronic Medical Record (EMR). By removing the manual data entry that often takes up half of a provider’s day, Perspectives Health helps reduce clinician burnout and ensures that mental health professionals can prioritize patient care over paperwork.
This fall quarter, Midway Ventures supported Perspectives Health through an engagement focused on competitor research and fundraising. The team conducted competitor analysis, including expert calls with former product managers from peer firms to better understand competing products and positioning, and supplemented this work by obtaining additional insights through behavioral clinic FOIA requests. Based on these findings, we developed a more professional pitch deck for Perspectives Health’s upcoming fundraising round. We also identified and prioritized three relevant pitch competitions for the company to participate in.
Coclo is a mobile marketplace built by UChicago students to simplify buying and selling secondhand and handmade clothes within university campuses. The platform streamlines the thrifting process by using assisted listing tools that generate captions and suggest prices for sellers, while buyers can use specific filters to find items in their size and style. Currently live at UChicago and NYU, the app also features a built-in scheduling system for secure on-campus meetups, creating a trusted network for sustainable fashion and student commerce.
In fall 2025, Midway assisted Coclo in customer discovery, user research and app-feature development as the startup sought to expand into more college campuses. The engagement began with incorporating effective customer discovery techniques into surveys that gauge thrifting behavior and eco-conscious as a proxy for app adaption. Drawing upon networks across schools in the US, Midway members selected schools to distribute the surveys based on competition with thrift stores and similar apps. At the same time, members assisted in the development of the “trinkets” section of the app by benchmarking against other online secondhand marketplaces. The survey results yielded meaningful insight into thrifting behavior across American campuses, ultimately culminating in Coclo’s successful expansion into NYU at the end of fall.
Top Marks Prep (TMP)
Top Marks Prep is an adaptive learning platform designed to streamline standardized test preparation for students from middle school through graduate school. The platform uses an intelligent diagnostic system to identify individual weak spots, creating a personalized roadmap that focuses on high-impact material rather than generic study plans. By offering unlimited adaptive practice, real-time score tracking, and detailed performance insights for both parents and tutors, Top Marks Prep aims to make the preparation process 40% faster and more transparent.
During this quarter, we collaborated with Top Marks Prep to accelerate their fundraising and Go-To-Market strategy through two primary workstreams. On the capital front, we spearheaded their fundraising efforts by identifying high-value funding programs and authoring a comprehensive investment memo designed to streamline investor relations. These efforts provided a structured foundation for the venture to engage with the capital markets more effectively.
Simultaneously, we drove a multi-channel outreach campaign to elevate brand awareness across podcasts, blogs, and various media outlets. To establish the company's authority in the EdTech space, we managed community engagement on platforms like Reddit and developed specialized B2B outreach templates for tutoring center partnerships. We also enhanced their organic SEO and overall platform value by populating the site with a series of standardized test study guides, ensuring long-term growth and market visibility.
CVCC Recap
The Chicago Venture Capital Competition (CVCC) at Booth was an intensive 24-hour competition Midway hosted this November. The final 10 teams analyzed 3 UChicago startups: Club Hub, Hydrastack, and Uncle May’s Produce. Participants built full investment theses from scratch while navigating a schedule of direct founder Q&As and final pitches to a panel of expert VCs. It was particularly rewarding to have Midway alumni make up half of the judging panel. To find out more details about how the competition went, you can visit:
https://www.midwayvc.com/blog/2026/1/21/midway-ventures-cvcc-chicago-venture-capital-competition
If you missed this competition, fret not as Midway will soon be hosting more cool events and competitions.
New Executive Board
As Midway enters this next phase of growth, we’re thrilled to introduce our new Executive Board. This team is ready to pick up the torch from our previous leadership committee, bringing fresh energy to the initiatives and projects we have lined up for the coming months.
Presidents: Darren Kuo & Sophie Yang
Vice President: Ebba Cha
Midway Studio Directors: Pranav Bellannagari, Shaamak Goyal, & Matthew Kang
Recruiting Directors: Rishi Kamdar & Alara Yilmaz
Finance Director: Aarav Mangla
Social Director: Charlotte Zelin
Education Director: Imran Siddiqui
Communications Director: Andrew Cheng
New Members
After a competitive application cycle, we are pleased to announce our newest cohort of 13 members. These individuals have recently just completed Midway’s New Member Education, a rigorous curriculum designed to prepare them with the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge to effectively engage with startups. In no particular order, they are:
William Kamfar
Shaamak Goyal
Charlotte Zelin
Andrew Cheng
Alara Yilmaz
Matthew Kang
Rishi Kamdar
Aarav Mangla
Alex Giannuzzi
Fiona Samson
Brendan Wan
Khushi Bora
Fernanda Escalante
They have already hit the ground running by supporting our winter engagements and bringing significant energy to the club. We look forward to seeing their continued impact as they grow within the organisation.
The Future
It has been nothing short of an amazing quarter for Midway. Between our national expansion and the impactful work that our teams have been delivering, the momentum is undeniable. We are incredibly proud of what we have built so far. We look forward to reaching even greater heights as the Midway Collective continues to grow. Stay tuned, as we are only just getting started.