Exelons “Dancing with Startups” Tour Returns to Chicago with Emerging Growth Company Event

CHICAGO--Chicago is the next stop on Exelon Corporations "Dancing with Startups," an initiative that helps large corporations tap into the ever growing entrepreneurial movement to accelerate their innovation and growth through the development of partnerships with emerging growth companies, incubators, accelerators, stealth-startups and entrepreneurs around the country.

In its second year of the two-year program and in conjunction with the Illinois Science & Technology Coalitions Corporate Startup Challenge, Exelons "Dancing with Startups" will host 13 emerging Illinois start-ups for a day of company presentations and partnership discussions on September 16 at TechNexus Venture Collaborative in Chicago. Companies selected represent industries from the battery, technology, materials, science, robotics, machine, communication, security, IoT, 3DPrinting, cleantech/energy efficiency sectors.

The program, created by Dean DeBiase, managing partner of Reboot Partners, was started last fall when it kicked-off in Chicago with some of 1871 entrepreneurial hubs top startups. "Overall, the reception has been strong, with entrepreneurs interested in developing substantive relationships that range from supplier and product partnerships to potential investments. In addition to Chicago and other tour stops at innovation hubs in Baltimore and San Diego, we continue to receive interest and evaluate companies from Colorado to London and Silicon Valley to Tel Aviv."

"The ‘Dancing with Startups tour has been a win-win for Exelon and the emerging business ecosystem," states Sonny Garg, Chief Information and Innovation Officer, Exelon. "Specifically, some of the early partnerships we formed with companies here in Chicago have had a real impact for us, like ADMCi, a design thinking school, and ÄKTA, a UX mobile development company, which has since become an Inc. 500 leader."

The "Dancing with Startups" event, which is closed to the public, is followed by a VIP and press reception, open to the press and Illinois business, civic and government leaders, beginning at 5 p.m. at TechNexus, 20 N. Wacker Drive, 12th Floor, Chicago, IL. To request an invitation to the to the VIP reception please email kathleen.bresnahan@exeloncorp.com.

About Reboot Partners

Reboot Partners is a growth acceleration group that helps organizations tackle their most challenging issues, seize emerging market opportunities and build global expansion partnerships—by leveraging the entrepreneurial movement and actively curating partnerships with top entrepreneurs, incubators, accelerators and stealth-startups in Silicon Valley and around the world, through the Dancing with Startups program.

About Exelon

Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC) is the nations leading competitive energy provider, with 2013 revenues of approximately $24.9 billion. Headquartered in Chicago, Exelon does business in 48 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. Exelon is one of the largest competitive U.S. power generators, with more than 35,000 megawatts of owned capacity comprising one of the nations cleanest and lowest-cost power generation fleets. The companys Constellation business unit provides energy products and services to approximately 100,000 business and public sector customers and more than 1 million residential customers. Exelons utilities deliver electricity and natural gas to more than 7.8 million customers in central Maryland (BGE), northern Illinois (ComEd) and southeastern Pennsylvania (PECO). Follow Exelon on Twitter @Exelon.