Sandbox Industries

Sandbox Industries is a United States venture capital firm located in Chicago. The firm focuses on connecting established corporations, or incumbents, with disruptive startups, or innovators, across several lines of business: strategic corporate investment funds, new business accelerators, and innovation consulting.

Sandbox was founded in Chicago in 2003 by Bob Shapiro and Nick Rosa. At its outset, Sandbox ran a startup Foundry that employed entrepreneurs and tasked them with researching and testing the viability of a startup concept. These companies were provided with seed funding, mentorship, and office space in exchange for equity. Portfolio companies include Lab42 and Marbles: The Brain Store. The firm has since ceased the internal founding of its own startups to focus on connecting corporate partners with entrepreneurs outside its own walls.

Sandbox Industries manages five Funds. Two are traditional funds: Sandbox Venture Fund and Sandbox Advantage Fund; and three are Collaborative Investment Vehicles: Blue Cross Blue Shield Venture Partners I, L.P., Blue Cross Blue Shield Venture Partners II, L.P., and Cultivian Sandbox Food and Agriculture Fund II.

Sandbox Venture Fund (SVF) invested primarily in Sandbox Industries' Foundry companies.

Sandbox Advantage Fund (SAF) invests in consumer technology, food and agriculture, and healthcare-related startups.

A Collaborative Investment Vehicle, or a CIV, is an investment model pioneered by Sandbox Industries; the first Fund to use this model was Blue Cross Blue Shield Venture Partners I, L.P. CIVs invest in new businesses that are of strategic relevance to the Fund's corporate investors. These investors then become potential customers or acquirers for those startups in which the fund invests. Sandbox Industries manages three CIVs: Blue Cross Blue Shield Venture Partners I, L.P.; Blue Cross Blue Shield Venture Partners II, L.P.; and Cultivian Sandbox Food and Agriculture Fund II.

Sandbox has an exclusive partnership with BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners to manage and invest BCBSVP Funds I and II. This group sources healthcare-related startups which, if invested in or partnered with, could further BlueCross and BlueShield's own goals or provide it with insight into industry trends, and makes recommendations to the venture partners.

Sandbox Industries is the Fund manager for BCBSVP Funds I and II, which are CIVs that invest in healthcare-related startups of strategic relevance to BlueCross BlueShield. BCBSVP has made investments in Bloom Health,Nexidia, and Patientco, among others.

Cultivian Sandbox is a partnership between Cultivian Ventures and Sandbox Industries which invests in food and agriculture technology companies. Fund II has made investments in Conservis, Vestaron, and EnEvolv, among others.

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