Brad Keywell is an accomplished American entrepreneur, investor, artist, author, philanthropist and professor. He is the founder of Uptake, an industrial insight software company, named ‘Startup of the Year’ by Forbes in 2015. He is a co-founder of several companies, including Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN), MediaOcean (global operating system for media buying — acquired by Vista Private Equity), Echo Global Logistics (leader in technology-enabled transportation — NASDAQ:ECHO), and Tempus Labs (precision healthcare AI software company).
Brad is an early investor in, and advisor to, many high-growth technology companies, including Sprout Social, Udemy, Fiverr, Crowdrise, Reverb, TastyTrade, Benzinga, Team Liquid, GoPuff, Coffee Meets Bagel, Hireology, Ovia Health, SoCore Energy, Snapsheet, Square, Roots, and Zeel. In 2019 Brad founded the WNDR Museum in Chicago, an immersive art + technology experience now expanding to 5 US locations. WNDR has twice been named one of the country’s best immersive museums by USA Today. In 2010 he founded Chicago Ideas, a weeklong ideas conference with 500+ world-class thinkers and disruptors on stage attracting over 30,000 attendees, and now a wide-ranging innovation platform.
Keywell received the 2011 Entrepreneurial Champion award from the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center. He was named one of the nation’s Top Ten Collegiate Entrepreneurs in 1991 by the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs and received the 2000 Conrad Hilton Distinguished Entrepreneur Award from Loyola Marymount University. He was named one of the “Internet 100” by Crain’s Chicago Business. He was the keynote speaker at the 2004 National Conference of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization.
Keywell served on the Board of Trustees of Columbia College, the nation’s largest secondary education institution dedicated to the fine arts, and was a member of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. He has served on the Board of Directors of Warrior Productions, a documentary filmmaker whose principal produced Hoop Dreams. He has served as a Trustee of the University of Michigan Hillel Foundation. He is a participant in both the Renaissance Weekend and the TED Conference. He is a member of the Chicago chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization and serves as Chairman of the YPO Coaches Clinic, an international YPO event.
Keywell received his J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan School of Law (1993) and his Bachelor of Business Administration with honors from the University of Michigan (1991). He also studied in 1990 at the London School of Economics.