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Angel Investing in the News:

For its first full quarter as a public company, Manitowoc-based Orion Energy Systems Inc. reported strong results in line with analysts' estimates.

Madison, Wis. - Venture Investors, making the first commitment from its new $117 million fund, has invested $500,000 in a Madison start-up business that will manufacture new battery technology, according to a report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Cambridge Major Laboratories will announce today a major expansion that gives it the ability to make active pharmaceutical ingredients on a large scale.

With the ranks of online social networking sites burgeoning, Charles Xie thinks it's getting too hard to pick out new friends in the crowd.

Stateline Angels, an angel investing group in Rockford Ill., has been assisting start-up companies finance their business endeavors since 2004. Not only do these angels provide nascent companies with funding, but they also give advice, mentoring and consulting to the firms in which they invest.

Madison, Wis. - The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has entered into licensing agreements for flu vaccine and embryonic stem cell technology with local and national companies, respectively.

Southeastern Wisconsin has a much better shot at pulling talent out of the wealth of resources at GE Healthcare than technology, a panel of current and former GE executives said Thursday at a meeting of the Wisconsin Innovation Network in Brookfield.

After selling the first company he founded for more than $1 million, UW-Madison engineering alum Chad Sorenson wasn't sure what to do next.

The winds may be changing for entrepreneurs in Southeastern Wisconsin.

Wisconsin ranks in the bottom third of the country for start-up companies. However, with a little help from Successful Entrepreneur Investors, LLC, an angel investing network based in Milwaukee, that statistic may soon be changing.

Madison, Wis. - Unless you're a scientific researcher, an economic development professional, or someone who enjoys poring over federal data, chances are good you've never heard of Small Business Innovation Research grants. If you're someone who cares about whether Wisconsin is getting a fair shake in Washington, D.C., however, you might want to learn the ABCs of SBIRs.

WAUKESHA – Whether you’re an injured soldier returning home from war, or a 16-year-old girl hurt in a car accident, it would be nice to know your orthopedic implant is customized to fit your own anatomy, reducing the chances for revision surgeries down the road.

Governor Jim Doyle today broke ground on the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, an integral part of his statewide strategy to cement Wisconsin’s status as a leader in the fields of biotechnology, health sciences, and stem cell research. Governor Doyle was joined at the event by UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Managing Director Carl Gulbrandsen, WARF Board of Trustees President Jan Ver Hagen, Wisconsin Institute for Discovery Interim Director Marsha Seltzer and UW-Madison alumni John and Tashia Morgridge.

Madison - From the outside, there's nothing special about Cellectar Inc.'s new 16,000-square-foot building in a strip mall off the Beltline highway on the city's southeast side.

Gov. Jim Doyle today announced that Wisconsin's specialty cheese production in 2007 rose 3 percent from the previous year, setting a new record. Specialty cheese totaled 399 million pounds and accounted for 16 percent of the state's total cheese production.

Entrepreneur magazine (May 2008 edition)  had a feature story on the importance of business plan contests -- and how the Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Contest helped Eric Antonson of U.S. Trailmaps, a company based near Wausau. The five-year-old contest is produced by the Wisconsin Technology Council.

Tissue Regeneration Systems Inc., a medical device company developing bioactive implants for bone and soft tissue regeneration, on Thursday announced the close of a $2 million round of financing led by Madison-based Venture Investors and joined by the founders of TRS.

Search engine leader Google Inc. has leased 5,000 square feet of office space in downtown Madison, the Mountain View, Calif., company said Tuesday.

Madison, Wis. - If you Google the office addresses for Google, the world's largest search engine, a listing for Madison, Wis., might soon pop up on your computer screen.

Madison, Wis. - Start-up technology businesses, take note: Perhaps the secret to becoming an acquisition target for a corporate giant like Roche is to not set out to be a target in the first place.

Madison, Wis. - With the stated goal of capturing 10 percent of the stem cell technology market by 2015, Gov. Jim Doyle used a 2006 visit to the Medical College of Wisconsin to announce an important executive order. It directed the state Department of Commerce to spend at least $5 million to recruit new stem cell companies to Wisconsin.

Ask Guri Sohi why Microsoft, the world's largest computer software company, is opening a lab on West Main Street, and the chair of the UW-Madison computer science department slowly shakes his head from side to side as a wry grin creases across his face.

It's not often that a small business gets the chance to acquire patented technology along with the connections and resources to bring a product to market.

UW-Madison students participated in a 100-hour competition over the weekend designed to spur students’ entrepreneur skills.

A Wauwatosa investment banking firm for the specialty chemical industry has raised $5 million for a new fund that will invest in early-stage companies in Wisconsin and two other states.

The manufacturing firm of the future will look very different than it does today.

Before Leonard Gentine Sr., became a big wheel in the world of cheese, he operated a funeral home in Plymouth, and also had his hand in raising mink and other furry animals.

PORT WASHINGTON - Some people talk about Big Oil, Big Banks, Big Pharma.

"I'm in Big Water," says Tom Pokorsky, a veteran of the technology race to supply safe and affordable water to parched and polluted parts of the world.

Madison, Wis. - The greening of business is considered one of the more sustainable trends in entrepreneurship, and new ventures don't come any greener than Sky Vegetables.

When the U.S. Senate takes another try at reforming patent law, it should do a better job of assuring that changes won 't discourage American innovation.

Madison, Wis. - One might think the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis would crash down equally on all investment markets, given the size of the problem working its way through the economy's digestive system.

After landing a $750,000 investment following her plan's first-place finish in the advanced manufacturing category last year, Kimberly Trygar is at it again.

Madison, Wis. - Is there cause for concern at Madison-based Quintessence Bioscience? After all, Alfacell Corp., an East Coast biotech competitor, just finished its second Phase III trial of a new class of anti-cancer therapy that is very similar to what is being developed at Quintessence, which has not even begun clinical trials on its lead candidate.

La Crosse, Wis. - What makes for a strong regional economy? That question stood at the center of a recent economic indicators breakfast that drew 190 people from the three-state “7 Rivers Region” anchored by La Crosse and Winona, Minn. The answers could be instructive for Wisconsin's other economic development regions.

MADISON –One might think the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis would crash down equally on all investment markets, given the size of the problem working its way through the economy’s digestive system.

Three of every 10 water meters sold in the United States come from a Milwaukee-area company.

Development of an entrepreneurial culture in Wisconsin is moving forward, but not without a step or two backward for every several steps forward.

Madison, Wis. - Having survived two rounds of judging, 20 entries from 15 communities are competing in the final round of the annual Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Contest, and technology companies are well represented.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2008) — Two years ago, University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists reported they had suppressed epileptic seizures in rats by giving them a glycolytic-inhibitor, inhibiting the brain's ability to turn sugar into excess energy and blocking the expression of seizure-related genes. The discovery was greeted with excitement and hope for a new class of drugs for epilepsy, which afflicts more than 50 million people worldwide.

Wisconsin-based Virent Energy Systems Inc. and international petroleum giant Shell have announced their first year in a joint research and development effort to produce biogasoline was successful. The companies have been working to convert plant sugars directly into gasoline and gasoline blends using Virent’s Aqueous Phase Reforming (APR) process, BioForming, and are on track to produce at a commercial scale by 2010.

The lifeblood of biotech companies is money, and multiple infusions of it are necessary given the long product development cycle and ability for these companies to generate revenue.

For Jim Adox, 41, reading The New York Times goes beyond getting the latest news, it’s a hobby that reminds the Manhattan native of being a kid.

(FORTUNE Small Business) -- "Are you crazy?"  That was his wife's withering assessment of the spot he had chosen to open his first store, Jamie Wilke recalls, and she probably had every reason to question her husband's sanity.

Paradigm Sensors will begin production of biodiesel testing devices this year from a new home inside a business incubator on the city's north side.

Apr 02, 2008 (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- It delivers instant images inside the body or shrinks tumors with laser-like radiation. And according to the nation's largest and oldest technology trade group, medical technology plays a commanding role in keeping Wisconsin in the global technology race.

Researchers, investors and ethanol producers, plus representatives of paper and forest products companies should be well represented at a biofuels conference set for April 16-17 on the UW-Stevens Point campus.

Durham, N.H. - Even before the current economic slowdown was acknowledged by government reports, angel investors took a more cautious approach to investing, according to the 2007 Angel Market Analysis released by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

MADISON -- Governor Jim Doyle today announced that FluGen and Sonoplot, Inc., two small businesses in Dane County, have qualified for investor tax credits under new Angel Investor and Venture Fund Tax Credit programs.

MADISON- Wisconsin has moved further away from the national average in per capita income, number of new jobs created and the number of new private businesses according to the state's annual benchmarks, released today.   The report-Measuring Success: Benchmarks for a Competitive Wisconsin-is released annually by Competitive Wisconsin, Inc. (CWI), a nonpartisan consortium of state agriculture, business, education and labor leaders.  Measuring Success grades Wisconsin in 33 areas of interstate competitiveness.  Compared to our performance in past years, 17 benchmarks changed this year-eight improvements and nine declines.

Madison, Wis. - Gov. Jim Doyle has announced that FluGen and Sonoplot, two small businesses in Dane County, have qualified for investor tax credits under Act 255, the state's angel investor and venture fund tax credit program.

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle makes a stop in La Crosse to promote his plan for energy independence in the state.  Doyle's plan is called "Clean energy Wisconsin" and promotes renewable energy resources, as well as increasing the state's energy security and efficiency.  Doyle says this comprehensive plan will also create new jobs, and improve the environment.

Gale Gordon decided to install an anaerobic digester when he built Deer Ridge Dairy six years ago, and he doesn't regret that decision. "I was looking back at here some time ago at the advantages we were looking at and they all have really come true," says Gordon.

WASHINGTON, March 25, 2008 - USDA Rural Development Under Secretary Thomas C. Dorr today announced that Open Range Communications, headquartered in Denver, Colo., has been approved to receive a $267 million loan from USDA Rural Development to provide broadband service to 518 rural communities in 17 states.

3/25/2008 10:23:13 AM Tuesday, mortgage insurer MGIC Investment Corp. (MTG) said it would raise about $420 million in common stock offering and $325 million in debt offering. On the news, shares of the company are currently down over 9% in NYSE.

In 2002, Bernard McCoy founded an online ink and toner business that today has grown into a multi-million-dollar operation, but contrary to the way most businesses work, his own salary hasn't increased in proportion to the company's profits.

WRIGHTSTOWN -- Coating Excellence International today announced a new partnership with Midwest-based private equity firm Mason Wells. Mason Wells, along with Coating Excellence management and Prudential Capital acquired the equity of the company from CEI’s existing shareholders.

Three statewide organizations with far-reaching constituencies have mounted strategic initiatives that see Wisconsin's economic challenges in clear terms and then raise the bar on where the state should be headed.

Madison, Wis. - NovaShield, a Madison-based developer of anti-malware technology, will use a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to tailor its product to detect and prevent sophisticated new security threats like botnets, keyloggers, and rootkits.

When Gov. Jim Doyle pitched a variety of tax credits and other measures designed to bolster innovation and entrepreneurship in his "state of the state" address last week, it was a sweet moment for a young trade group. The Wisconsin Technology Council has for several years been promoting variations of many of Doyle's proposals - expanding tax credits for angel and venture capital investors, offering research and development tax credits for corporations, providing sales and use tax exemptions like manufacturers get to the state's tech companies.