Nande

What Nande does

Nande, Inc. is a privately held, Chicago-based digital content company that publishes curated local guides for the Chicago metropolitan area and select Midwest destinations. The platform organizes editorial content into seven distinct series — Love Thy Neighborhood (neighborhood walkabouts), Night Crawler (nightlife), Let's Be Friends (date ideas and social activities), City in a Garden (outdoor activities), Day Tripping (excursions to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana), Good Bites (dining), and Known/Unknown (famous landmarks paired with overlooked nearby spots). Each guide features venue-specific recommendations with addresses and walking or activity routes, suggesting an editorial workflow built on a standard content management system rather than proprietary technology.

The company's commercial model is a freemium subscription: free content drives organic acquisition through the website and social channels, while a premium membership unlocks full content access, weekly curated event emails, and exclusive deals. Billing is processed through Stripe on a recurring basis with auto-renewal. The platform is distributed via the owned website (nande.co), native iOS and Android applications, and social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. User accounts support secondary engagement features including saving places, building lists, and creating personal travel maps.

Nande serves a horizontal consumer base — primarily Chicago residents seeking curated local experiences beyond mainstream attractions, with a secondary segment of visitors and tourists seeking authentic recommendations. The company is privately held with no disclosed institutional investors, operates with a 6-person team, and shows no public funding or revenue disclosures. Its go-to-market is product-led, relying on organic content marketing and social distribution rather than paid acquisition.

Name

Nande

Legal name

Nande, Inc.

Website

https://nande.co

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Nande is a Chicago-based digital media company that publishes curated local guides covering Chicago neighborhoods, dining, nightlife, outdoor activities, and Midwest day trips, monetizing through a freemium subscription model for consumers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Local City Guides / Digital Content

NAICS

Information (51)

SIC

Services-Miscellaneous Amusement & Recreation (7990)

akta.pro primary industry

Local & City Guide Content Aggregators (MPACAKAJ)

akta.pro secondary industry

Review-Led Travel Discovery & Booking Platforms (THAKAAAN)

Keywords

• Local city guides
• Chicago neighborhood guides
• Curated travel content
• Outdoor activity guides
• Digital content subscription

Headquarters

HQ city

Chicago

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription Membership: Nande offers a subscription-based membership model where users can join for free to access basic content, with premium membership providing full access to all content, deals, and weekly event recommendations via email. The subscription auto-renews and is processed through third-party payment processors.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Nande publishes curated, locally-written guides covering Chicago neighborhoods, dining, nightlife, day trips, and outdoor activities, organized into themed series. Content is delivered through a website and native iOS and Android mobile apps, with a freemium membership model that gates premium content behind a subscription.

Product overview

Nande is a single-product digital content platform publishing curated guides about Chicago. The platform organizes content into seven distinct guide series: Love Thy Neighborhood (neighborhood exploration), Night Crawler (evening/nightlife), Let's Be Friends (date ideas and social activities), City in a Garden (outdoor activities), Day Tripping (excursions from Chicago), Good Bites (dining), and Known/Unknown (pairing famous landmarks with overlooked nearby spots).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Nande Guides Platform Curated, locally-written digital guides covering Chicago neighborhoods, dining, nightlife, day trips, and outdoor activities, organized into themed series and distributed via the website (nande.co), iOS, and Android apps.
• Nande Premium Membership Subscription-based premium tier that unlocks expanded access to curated Chicago guides beyond the free content available on the platform.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• StripecoreTechnology or IntegrationNande uses Stripe as their payment processor for subscription billing. Stripe handles payment collection, subscription management, and billing for Nande's membership services.

Recent moves1 record

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Do312: Do312 is a Chicago-focused events and things-to-do platform aggregating local events, concerts, and weekend activities — overlapping with Nande's weekly event email and Night Crawler / Let's Be Friends series.
• Eater Chicago: Eater Chicago is a city-specific editorial publication focused on Chicago's dining and food scene, overlapping directly with Nande's Good Bites series and broader neighborhood-coverage model.
• Time Out Chicago: Time Out Chicago is a local guide and editorial platform covering Chicago restaurants, nightlife, neighborhoods, and events — the same vertical niche Nande occupies, with a similar city-guide anchor and free plus revenue-generating content model.
• The Infatuation: The Infatuation is a city-specific restaurant and neighborhood guide platform with reviews, maps, and editorial content — directly comparable to Nande's curated, opinion-led local discovery approach.
• Atlas Obscura: Atlas Obscura curates unique, lesser-known places and experiences in cities worldwide — a strong analogue to Nande's Known/Unknown and neighborhood walkabout content, with a similar curated-discovery editorial voice.
• Choose Chicago: Choose Chicago is the city's official destination marketing organization publishing curated visitor and local guides on neighborhoods, dining, and events — a direct competitor for Chicago discovery intent across both resident and tourist segments.

Broad incumbents

• Yelp: Yelp is a large-scale local business discovery and reviews platform covering restaurants, bars, and venues across Chicago — overlapping with Nande's venue recommendations but at much broader scale and with a reviews-led model.
• Tripadvisor: Tripadvisor is a global travel discovery and reviews platform with significant Chicago coverage, including day-trip destinations in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana — overlapping with Nande's Day Tripping series and broader local-discovery intent.
• Thrillist: Thrillist is a national digital media brand covering food, travel, and local experiences with Chicago-specific content — overlapping with Nande across dining, day trips, and neighborhood discovery, though at much broader scale.

Emerging players

• Secret Media: Secret Media operates a network of hyper-local city publications (e.g., Secret Chicago) featuring curated neighborhood, dining, and events content — a comparable city-guide publishing model with a similar freemium/editorial approach.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/project_nande
• Facebookfacebook.com/projectnande
• Instagraminstagram.com/nande_chicago
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/projectnande

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Nande