In 2018 Q2, four Milwaukee-area Technology Startups raised a total of $782,999. Congratulations to Swirl Insurance Services, LLC, Scanalytics, Inc., Inventalator, and GenoPalate, Inc.

Also in 2018 Q2, four Madison-area Technology Startups raised a total of $26,861,760! Congratulations to Reciprocal Labs Corp (Propeller Health), SmartUQ LLC, Healthfinch, Inc., and Integrated Vital Medical Dynamics, LLC.

Together, Milwaukee-area and Madison-area Technology Startups raised a total of $27,644,759!

As always, the following caveats apply to the above graph and findings:

1. All information is from FormDs.Com.
2. To be included as a Madison-area or Milwaukee-Area Technology Startup Funding event on this report, the business must be located in the Madison-area or Milwaukee-area as defined by FormDs.Com; the business must be in the Technology Industry Group (which includes Computers, Telecommunications, and Other Technology); and the business must not be publicly traded.
3. I’m not a startup funding professional or an accountant. If there’s something wrong with this report, be nice, tell me directly or LEAVE A COMMENT, and I’ll do my best to correct it.

In 2018 Q1, two Milwaukee-area Technology Startups raised a total of $3,253,734. Congratulations to basic-code and GenoPalate, both of Brookfield, WI.

Also in 2018 Q1, three Madison-area Technology Startups raised a total of $1,425,007. Congratulations to VIP Crowd, GymDandy, and EnsoData.

Together, Milwaukee-area and Madison-area Technology Startups raised a total of $4,678,741!

As always, the following caveats apply to the above graph and findings:

1. All information is from FormDs.Com.
2. To be included as a Madison-area or Milwaukee-Area Technology Startup Funding event on this report, the business must be located in the Madison-area or Milwaukee-area as defined by FormDs.Com; the business must be in the Technology Industry Group (which includes Computers, Telecommunications, and Other Technology); and the business must not be publicly traded.
3. I’m not a startup funding professional or an accountant. If there’s something wrong with this report, be nice, tell me directly or LEAVE A COMMENT, and I’ll do my best to correct it.

In 2017 Q4, two Milwaukee Technology Startups received $5,497,001 in funding, by far the best quarter since I started tracking in 2016 Q1. In fact, Milwaukee beat out Madison in Technology funding for a quarter for the first time to my knowledge. I don’t say this to emphasize a separation between Milwaukee and Madison, but it is a notable event. In fact, Milwaukee and Madison are really in this together, and raised a combined $7,260,608 in 2017 Q4!

Quarterly investments in technology startups in Milwaukee and Madison over the seven-quarter period including 2016 Q1 through 2017 Q4.

Tracked Funding – Milwaukee, WI:

Tracked Funding – Madison, WI:

NOTE: As always, the following caveats apply to the above graph and findings:

1. All information is from FormDs.Com.
2. To be included as a Madison-area or Milwaukee-Area Technology Startup Funding event on this report, the business must be located in the Madison-area or Milwaukee-area as defined by FormDs.Com; the business must be in the Technology Industry Group (which includes Computers, Telecommunications, and Other Technology); and the business must not be publicly traded.
3. I’m not a startup funding professional or an accountant. If there’s something wrong with this report, be nice, tell me directly or LEAVE A COMMENT, and I’ll do my best to correct it.

In 2017 Q3, no Milwaukee Technology Startups received funding, which makes for a pretty boring chart! So, instead, I decided to compare Milwaukee to Madison:

Quarterly investments in technology startups in Milwaukee and Madison over the seven-quarter period including 2016 Q1 through 2017 Q3.

It appears technology startups in Madison, WI, have received considerably more funding compared to technology startups in Milwaukee, WI. My calculations show an average of nearly 11 times as much money was invested in technology startups in Madison compared to Milwaukee over the past seven quarters!

NOTE: The following caveats apply to the above graph and findings:

1. All information is from FormDs.Com.
2. To be included as a Milwaukee-Area Technology Startup Funding event on this report, the business must be located in the Milwaukee-area as defined by FormDs.Com; the business must be in the Technology Industry Group (which includes Computers, Telecommunications, and Other Technology); and the business must not be publicly traded.
3. To be included as a Madison-Area Technology Startup Funding event on this report, the business must be located in the Madison-area as defined by FormDs.Com; the business must be in the Technology Industry Group (which includes Computers, Telecommunications, and Other Technology); and the business must not be publicly traded.
4. I’m not a startup funding professional or an accountant. If there’s something wrong with this report, be nice, tell me, and I’ll try to correct it.

The second quarter of 2017 (April 1 thru June 30) is over. Let’s check the status on the funding of Milwaukee technology startups ,,,

From what I can see, only one Milwaukee-area technology startup received any funding:

• Intelligent Digital Avatars (Mequon, Wisconsin) filed on May 11, 2017, that they received $309,990 in new funding.

That means the chart for Milwaukee-area technology startup funding for the past six quarters now looks as follows:

This does not appear to be a good trend for Milwaukee-area technology startups.

The same caveats apply to this report as last quarter:

1. All information is from FormDs.Com.
2. To be listed as a Milwaukee-Area Technology Startup Funding event on this report, the business must be located in the Milwaukee-area as defined by FormDs.Com; the business must be in the Technology Industry Group (which includes Computers, Telecommunications, and Other Technology); and the business must not be publicly traded.
3. I’m not a startup funding professional or an accountant. If there’s something wrong with this report, be nice, tell me, and I’ll try to correct it.

###

I’ve compiled a report of Milwaukee-Area Technology Startup Funding Events using data from FormDs.Com for the period starting January 1, 2016 through March 31, 2017 (five quarters).

This report shows there were four technology startup funding events in Milwaukee in 2017 Q1. These four events totaled about $1.4 million.

Download the following PDF report for more details:

2016 Q1 thru 2017 Q1 Milwaukee-Area Technology Startup Funding Report (PDF, 204K)

Disclaimer: I’m not a startup funding professional or an accountant. If there’s something wrong with this report, be nice, tell me, and I’ll try to correct it. My email address is in the report.

Are you an emerging company looking to connect with a major Wisconsin company? Consider applying to participate in the 2015 Wisconsin Tech Summit, which will be held March 23 at the GE Healthcare Institute facility in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Note: The application deadline for emerging companies is February 16.

The other night I attended the Ruby MKE Meetup. The topic was the 7 Degrees of FizzBuzz by Bill Gathen. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get to the final “degree” before the end of the meeting. So, for those who are interested, here is my solution:

[ruby]
require ‘sinatra’

get ‘/’ do
erb :index
end

__END__
@@ index

<% (1..99).each do |x| %>
<%= ("fizzbuzz" if x % 15 == 0) || ("fizz" if x % 3 == 0) || ("buzz" if x % 5 == 0) || x %>

<% end %>

[/ruby]

A little more than a week ago, July 17-19, 2013, I had the pleasure of participating in the 2nd Annual Techstars Patriot Boot Camp held at George Washinton University (GWU) in Washington DC.

Pre-Event

Near the end of May 2013, my friends at VETransfer – a Milwaukee-based program that helps veterans become entrepreneurs – let me know the 2nd Annual Techstars Patriot Boot Camp was coming up, and that I should apply to participate.

I completed the application and recorded a 4-minute video describing my military background and why I wanted to attend. By early-June I learned I was selected to attend! I quickly made flight and hotel reservations, and ordered a set of personal business cards from Moo.Com. There was no cost for the ‘boot camp’ itself.

Day One – July 18, 2013

On the first day of the program – “Education Day” – we were treated to talks by an impressive panel of speakers. Taylor McLemore – the “founder” of Techstars Patriot Boot Camp – welcomed us and outlined the agenda for each day. Retired General George Casey – the former 36th Chief of Staff of the Army – talked to us about transforming vision in to action. Dave Cass, CEO of Uvize, spoke of the struggles of being an entrepreneur and the value of working with mentors. David Mandell, CEO of PivotDesk, talked about “how to rock the pitch.” Aneesh Chopra, the first and now former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the United States, suggested there are big opportunities for entrepreneurs today in the areas of government, healthcare, and education. Finally, Steve Blank talked with us by webcam about startups and startup methodologies. In the afternoon, we attended breakout sessions on further perfecting the pitch, raising capital, customer development, and the business model canvas.

Next, we all loaded onto buses and visited the headquarters of Opower where President and Founder, Alex Laskey, told us the history of his company. Opower also provided us with dinner and an opportunity to network and tour their impressive – yet open and very comfortable – offices. Finally, after a long day of learning, we loaded up on the buses and headed back to GWU. Whew, what a day!

Day Two – July 19, 2013

Day two – “Mentor Day” – started with a talk by the current CTO of the United States, Todd Park, who encouraged us to leverage the open data sets being provided by the government. He also gave us a list of tips for entrepreneurs and invited us to contact him directly if we had questions! Patrick Riley of the Global Accelerator Network (GAN) gave us tips on navigating “startup land” and working with mentors.

Next came the most exciting part of the program, for me: talking with the Techstars mentors in one-on-one 25-minute sessions. Earlier, using Ohours.Com, we were able to select which mentors we wanted to meet with. I was quick to register and was ultimately able to select and meet with eight mentors throughout the day. My first mentor session was with the serial entrepreneur and founder of Techstars, David Cohen. David was actually in London, so we talked by way of Skype. After listening to my story, he offered to put me in contact with another mentor who will hopefully help me validate my ideas. My other mentoring sessions were in-person and included meetings with: David Mandell, CEO of Pivot Desk; Rami Essaid, CEO of Distil Networks; Rahul Sing, CEO of Anant; Dave Drach, VP of Techstars; Rob Painter, Managing Director of Razors Edge Ventures; Jim Brinksma, Founder of Visible Arbitrage; and Ben Deda, VP of FullContact. I was stunned at the quality of these mentorship sessions. Each was fully engaged as I told my story and each provided unique ideas to help me move forward. During the day we also took breaks for talks by Congressman Jared Polis and Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA).

Next, we all loaded on buses and headed to Washington’s preimere co-working space, 1776, where we had dinner and heard from Shabab Kaviani of CoFoundersLab and Donna Harris of 1776. Finally, we loaded back on the buses and headed back to GWU.

Day Three – July 20, 2013

Day three – “Demo Day” – was a half-day, and was kicked-off by a talk by Ramsey McGrory of AddThis. Next, while many attendees demonstrated their ideas to each other, I continued to network with some of my new friends. Finally, Peter Levin, gave an engaging closing essay, and Taylor McLemore and Tom Chikoore closed out the program with a warm “thank you” and a request that we go out and “build things”.

Summary

My Techstars Patriot Boot Camp experience was simply amazing! I want to say “thank you” to Taylor and the entire Techstars crew who organized the event; to all the speakers and mentors; to GWU, Opower, and 1776 who hosted us; to the all sponsors; and to my peers and fellow attendees. Ultimately, we all came together to create a very unique experience around the idea that those with military experience are in a unique position to support each other as they follow their entrepreneurial passions.

If you have the opportunity to attend a future Techstars Patriot Boot Camp, I highly recommend it!