IVCA Feature: New Member Profile of Vokal
Throughout 2026, new member participants in the Illinois Venture Capital Association (IVCA) will keep it expanding. These new members also will give the current membership new opportunities for networking … in addition to optimizing support and partnerships … which leads to guidance and new ideas for Venture Capital, Private Equity and the support industries.
The latest new member is the firm Vokal, which is “Built to drive growth for mid-market companies and Private Equity portfolios with strategy that scales and work that sticks.”
The following is a Q&A profile with Vokal, which explores the firm’s background and their expectations for interacting with the IVCA.
New Member: Vokal
Representatives: Henry Byrne, CFO and Reid Lappin, Founder & CEO
IVCA: What is a brief history of and background of Vokal?
Vokal: Vokal is a Chicago-based digital and AI advisory firm built to create enterprise value for mid-market companies and private equity portfolios.
We started with an observation that seemed obvious once we saw it … Private Equity was massively underserved when it came to digital. Not because the need wasn’t there but because traditional agencies were never built for PE, they were built for brand marketers. Long timelines, big retainers, and metrics that don’t mean anything in a board meeting.
So we built something different. An agency designed entirely around how PE works hold periods, EBITDA sensitivity, and an obsession with exit value. Every framework, every engagement, every metric we track runs through one filter – does this create enterprise value?
Today, Vokal works alongside sponsors and management teams to drive revenue growth, expand EBITDA, and build businesses that command premium exits, using digital and AI as the core levers to get there.
IVCA: Why did the firm decide to join the Illinois Venture Capital Association?
Vokal: We joined IVCA because we want to contribute to something bigger than just our own firm.
Chicago is an incredible city for Private Equity … with deep ecosystem, sharp operators, and a culture of collaboration that’s rare in this industry. We want to help keep elevating that, and IVCA felt like the right place to do it.
A big part of how we can contribute is education. Digital growth levers are still underutilized across a lot of PE-backed businesses, and AI is moving so fast that even the most plugged-in operators are struggling to keep up. We want to help the ecosystem cut through the noise – sharing what’s actually working and how to think about AI as a practical, right-now lever for enterprise value creation, not just a buzzword.
Everything we do is built around the same priorities PE and VC firms care about: growth, efficiency, and de-risking investments. Being closer to that conversation, earlier in the investment lifecycle, just makes us more useful to everyone.
IVCA: Mid market companies are often called the ‘backbone of the economy.’ Given that assertion, how does your agency position your digital advisory to a mid market strength?
Vokal: Mid-market companies are the backbone of the economy and also the most underserved when it comes to digital.
These businesses are under enormous pressure to perform, especially in PE-backed environments. But they’re rarely resourced to match that pressure. Attracting great digital talent in-house is genuinely hard at the mid-market level, and AI is only raising that bar higher. Meanwhile, large consulting firms aren’t built for mid-market, the economics don’t work and you end up overpaying for under-resourced teams.
That gap is exactly where Vokal lives.
We act as embedded digital operators, driving strategy and execution. Full-stack capabilities across growth marketing, data, and technology, moving at deal speed with no long onboarding or theoretical roadmaps. We identify the highest-leverage opportunities and execute fast, with everything tied directly to revenue growth, margin improvement, and exit readiness.
For mid-market companies, that kind of partnership isn’t just useful. It’s a competitive advantage.
IVCA: Your strategy is about the Digital Value Creation Plan (DVCP). What do you teach your clients about ‘Digital Value’ that speaks plainly to the marketing environment we currently reside in?
Vokal: We simplify digital value down to one idea … digital should directly impact revenue, EBITDA, and risk.
The market right now is brutal and it’s only getting harder. A huge portion of Private Equity is consolidating around the same industries – multi-location healthcare, home services, consumer services. When you have dozens of well-capitalized PE-backed competitors fighting for the same customer in the same channels, CAC goes up, margins compress, and generic tactics stop working almost immediately. AI is pouring gasoline on that dynamic, automating competition at a scale and speed that wasn’t possible even two years ago.
Winning in that environment requires more than good marketing. It requires connected systems across growth marketing, data, and technology that are built to outperform, not just participate.
That’s what the Digital Value Creation Plan is built around. We cut through the noise, quickly identify what’s working and what isn’t, as well as where to invest next. Everything maps back to three things … accelerating revenue, improving margins, and reducing risk.
That’s how digital stops being a cost center and starts being a real value creation lever.
IVCA: On your website, you highlight four levels of interaction with your service — FOUNDATION, ACQUISITION, CONVERSION, RETENTION — how do you analyze the level you’re working on with a PE portfolio or mid market company?
Vokal: We use those four levels as a structured diagnostic framework embedded within our DVCP.
Every engagement starts with a digital scorecard and audit across …
Foundation – martech, data, analytics, brand, compliance; Acquisition – SEO, paid media, channel mix; Conversion – website performance, UX, funnel optimization; Retention – CRM, lifecycle marketing, loyalty.
From there, we identify bottlenecks impacting revenue and EBITDA; map value drivers and prioritize highest-impact opportunities; and sequence initiatives based on speed-to-value and scalability.
IVCA: Obviously the buzzword of the moment is AI. In strategy, how deep are your recommendations for your clients, based on their product/service or market position?
Vokal: Our starting point is always the business model. A multi-location healthcare company has completely different AI leverage points than a home services platform or a B2B software business. So we don’t come in with a generic framework, we map AI opportunities directly to where that specific business makes and loses money.
From there we work across three layers … helping teams move faster and smarter, redesigning the processes that are dragging on margins, and building capabilities that become genuine competitive advantages over time. The last one is where it gets really interesting, embedding AI into products, data systems, and customer experiences in ways that are hard for competitors to replicate and that show up clearly in enterprise value at exit.
We’ve also put our money where our mouth is by building our own AI. Vantage85 is our proprietary AI-powered due diligence tool, deployed across 50+ deals in 2025, that gives sponsors a faster, sharper read on digital value creation opportunities before they close a deal. It’s a good example of what we mean when we say AI should be built, not just bought.
Our role is to help clients move from curiosity to execution and ensure AI is not just adopted, but fully integrated into the systems that drive growth.
IVCA: What does Vokal hope to achieve in their interaction with the VC/PE community within the IVCA?
Vokal: We joined IVCA because we care about this ecosystem and want to contribute.
Digital and AI are moving faster than any of us can fully keep up with, and these conversations are landing in boardrooms whether teams feel ready or not. We don’t have all the answers, but we’re deep in this stuff every day across a lot of deals and portfolio companies. If that perspective is useful to people in this community, we want to share it openly. More real conversation, less buzzword theater.
Chicago already has an incredible Private Equity ecosystem, with the capital, the industries and the operators. We just want to help contribute to its evolution. More deals getting done here, more talented people choosing Chicago to build their careers in digital and AI, and a community that keeps raising the bar for what great looks like.
For the website of Vocal, click here.
The 2026 IVCA Spring Luncheon … Featuring the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) … will take place at The Chicago Club (81 East Van Buren Street) on April 22nd starting at 11:00am. For details and to register, click here.