'Angels love Wisconsin'; Great Lakes leads in angel funding

Inc. magazine called out Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region in this month's issue, based on a new "Halo Report" from the Angel Resource Institute showing the region invested in more deals than most other areas of the U.S.

Wisconsin was identified as a leader in the Great Lakes region, which also includes Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Those states accounted for 17 percent of all angel deals in the first quarter of 2014. (download the full report)

Wisconsin Investment Partners, a Madison angel group and long-serving Wisconsin

Angel Network member, was among the 10 most active angel groups in the country. The group closed on at least eight deals in the quarter, across a number of sectors, from companies working on new vaccines to online website tracking. Manager Andy Shrago told the Wisconsin State Journal the activity is a testament to Wisconsin's strong deal flow. 

Returning to Wisconsin by popular demand, a deep-dive workshop coming to Appleton on Sept. 18 will focus on what angels, entrepreneurs and others who work with startups need to know about raising capital.

Produced by the Wisconsin Angel Network, the Investors' Edge workshop "Trends in Raising Early Stage Capital" delves deeply into

best practices in the capital raising environment. Robert Okabe, the board director of the Angel Resource Institute and managing director of RPX Group LLC, will be leading the afternoon workshop at the Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton. Lunch and an evening reception will be provided and attendees will receive a detailed 80-page workbook to follow along and take with them for their next deal. 

Check out the event website for more information or contact Wisconsin Angel Network Director Dan Blake.

Greg Robinson, the managing director of the new 4490 Ventures fund, compared Wisconsin with his 10 plus years of experience in Silicon Valley at the August WIN-Milwaukee meeting.

Among Robinson's early findings in Wisconsin are that he sees a lot of entrepreneurial activity (a pleasant surprise, he said) and plenty of program support for entrepreneurs around the state. Robinson said the "building blocks" are present in Wisconsin, but also said local investors need to play for more than "a single" and sees a need for more connections between Wisconsin's corporations and startups, an ongoing effort with events like the recent Wisconsin Tech Summit.

Read more about Robinson's comments and how they compare to the Silicon Valley landscape in John Torinus's recent column.

UW-Madison researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka will discuss his work surrounding a potentially deadly avian flu virus at the Tuesday, Aug. 26 luncheon of the Wisconsin Innovation Network in Madison.

Kawaoka has engineered an avian virus that is nearly, but not precisely, identical to one that killed 40 million people in 1918 to show that it is possible for pathogens already present in nature to repeat some dreadful history. Kawaoka is also conducting two types of Ebola studies on campus.

“As the recent Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has demonstrated, the ability of pathogens to spread quickly is a challenge that requires creative thinking by researchers and human health experts,” said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.

Read more and get registered for the luncheon.

Madison ad-fraud detection startup acquired

MdotLabs, a Madison company started by UW-Madison Professor Paul Barford and Timur Yarnall, was acquired by comScore, a publicly-traded internet analytics company based in Virginia.

The larger company said it plans to use Mdot to help with detecting non-human traffic in digital advertising.

“The MdotLabs team is thrilled to join comScore as we look to scale the value of our non-human traffic detection methods to a much greater footprint of clients,” Yarnall said in a statement announcing the deal.

Mdot's investors included Great Oaks Venture Capital, Chicago Ventures, AmFam Ventures and angel investor Ray Zemon, among others.

Invisible Connect, a hardware startup that has been quietly building out its offices in Eau Claire, has raised a $2.5 million seed round from an individual investor, according to a recent SEC filing.

The company has only publicly disclosed that it is creating "new technology that will disrupt an established industry that has not had true innovation in over 60 years." The size of the funding round, from only one investor, is unusual to see, according to Xconomy, which first reported the investment.

A new accelerator being run as a partnership between Microsoft and American Family Insurance announced its inaugural class of 10 startups. The accelerator, focused on home automation and the Internet of Things, will be hosted on the Microsoft campus in Washington. Scanalytics, a Milwaukee company with a platform for sensor-based analytics and engagement, was among the companies selected.

Read more about the program.

Campus innovations chosen for new D2P program

A new program to help take promising projects from the UW-Madison campus and help them get to market announced its first 17 projects, with the largest number made up of medical technology innovations.

A total of 172 proposals were received for the new "Discovery to Product," or D2P program, which is a partnership between UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). Most of the teams will receive grants, allocated from the state, as they reach certain milestones, Program Director John Biondi told the Wisconsin State Journal.