Private Equity Group

All of our executives have extensive experience in raising capital for projects, but we have felt a need to further assist our funds’ clients raise the needed capital for their projects via their Opportunity Funds. To meet this need, Gateway has partnered with a leading Private Equity Group in the Midwest, whose founder, Jim Schultz, has joined us as President to lead ours.

Jim has over 30 years of investment experience and has been instrumental in starting and providing capital to companies throughout the country.  Jim has a diverse background in venture capital and private equity, investment banking and other entrepreneurial ventures.  He has been an active investor in a wide variety of industries, including:  agriculture, life sciences, medical services and medical device technologies, semiconductor, software development, e-commerce, construction, financial services and information technology.  Before founding Open Prairie, Jim was active in negotiating investment agreements in numerous equity and mezzanine financings for start-up and growth-stage companies in the Midwest.  In 2015, Jim was appointed by the Governor of Illinois as Director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

In career prior to private equity, Jim held executive level management positions and served as the Chairman of the Board of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Small Business Advisory Council on Agriculture, Labor and Small Business.  As Chairman of PrimeBanc, a rural-Illinois regional bank, Jim provided leadership that resulted in increasing the bank’s assets from $40 million to $600 million.  He currently represents Open Prairie as a member of the Board of Directors for Tillerman Seeds, Vestaron, Metactive Medical, and Flow Forward Medical.  Jim is a graduate of the National Venture Capital Association Venture Capital Institute.  He received an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a Juris Doctorate from DePaul University College of Law.  Jim graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis on entrepreneurship from Southern Methodist University.

Through Jim’s leadership, and our diverse relationships in the investment community, Gateway Opportunity Funds strives to provide the best, direct access, to the investor community.

We are excited to bring this option to our clients, because nothing really does matter if you cannot get the equity needed for your project.