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Short articles on Wisconsin entrepreneurs succeeding against the odds 

Angel Investing in the News:

The Vilas County Economic Development Corp. (VCEDC) will form an angel network in Vilas County. This network of angel investors, or high net-worth individuals who invest in selected start-up and growth companies, will be the 23rd such group to affiliate with the Wisconsin Angel Network (WAN).

A Madison company that makes an anti-aging dietary supplement from jellyfish protein has raised $250,000 from DaneVest Tech Fund.

Promising young companies will have a chance to make presentations to a panel of investors at the 2010 Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium in November.

A state grant of more than $463,000 announced Wednesday will help train workers in northern Wisconsin for production of biofuels.

At her stem cell research company at University Research Park, Beth Donley is spending $200,000 in federal money to study embryonic stem cells. She's hoping for $700,000 more and preparing to apply next month for up to $10 million.

Wisconsin technology executives who responded to the second-quarter 2010 WisBusiness.com Tech Leaders Survey reflected growing pessimism about the strength of the state’s economic recovery in the year ahead.

Over 285 registered attendees gathered at the Madison Marriott West for Biotechnology Vision Summit, the annual conference of state biotech industry interest group BioForward

Volcanic ash from Iceland. Fires in Russia. Hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists at a 30-year-old Madison satellite institute have studied them all.

Quincy Biosciences, a Madison biotech firm, is developing a product for canine mental health.

Exact Sciences Corp. (EXAS) said it has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell up to $150 million of securities, including equity, debt and other securities.

Kurt Sippel is one of those small-business entrepreneurs who economic development officials dream about.  A self-taught computer geek, Sippel launched Applied Tech Solutions a decade ago with $15,000 in savings and the faith that most every company could use help with its information technology systems.

Zystor Therapeutics Inc. has been acquired by BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., a Novato, Calif., biopharmaceutical company, a deal that could attract investors for other Midwestern companies and venture funds.

MADISON - If black crepe came in DNA double-helix swirls, some pessimistic analysts would hang it over the still-breathing body of the nation's biotechnology industry.

Any number of things can go wrong in a venture capital fund and even more can go awry if the state is involved.

Health care reform is just one of many factors driving change in the health care field.

Understanding the networks involved in tech investment is important, particularly at the early stage of your startup, but finding all the information you need can be challenging and time-consuming. You want to make sure you're pitching to the right investor with the right history and interests, someone who can offer you not just funding, but mentorship

PARIS — Skype, the popular Internet telephone service, said Monday that it hoped to raise $100 million in an initial public offering of stock.

Small Business Administration-backed lending in Wisconsin fell to mid-recession depths last month following the expiration of federal measures designed to stimulate loans and the economy.

Lured by state incentives, a small medical technology firm spun off from an Indiana company said Monday it will locate in Madison.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Much like Wisconsin, Kentucky is a “flyover state” to many business people on the East and West coasts. And, much like the Wisconsin economy, Kentucky is best known for a few iconic products: Bourbon, tobacco and horses are Kentucky trademarks; beer, cheese and Harley-Davidson motorcycles (for now) are familiar Wisconsin brands.

 

Keynote speakers will offer global and regional economic perspectives at the annual Synergy Conference Tuesday, Oct. 5, at The Plaza Conference Center in Eau Claire.

Wauwatosa-based energy management control provider Telkonet Inc. (TKOI) announced Friday it has reached agreements to raise $1.3 million through a private equity sale.

The Village of Pleasant Prairie's Community Development Authority has approved a conceptual plan for a biomedical innovation center.

U.S. Senator Herb Kohl announced today that the state of Wisconsin will receive $65,214,896 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Broadband Initiatives Program.

Mark Bugher has a dream — a big dream.  Bugher, director of the University Research Park, already oversees an institution that provides jobs to 3,500 employees in Madison. But he has his eyes set on more

Surgical Site Solutions Inc. has been certified as a qualified new business venture from the state Department of Commerce, which makes investors in the Sheboygan company eligible to receive as much as $1 million in tax credits.

Madison-based Exact Sciences Corp. (EXAS) reported Wednesday that it had a net loss of $2.5 million, or 6 cents a share, in the second quarter.

Exact Sciences Corp. has licensed technology from a Belgian company that it can use to strengthen the non-invasive DNA-based test for colon cancer it is developing.

Based on the feedback from 206 manufacturers that retained the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership (WMEP) during the past fiscal year, the services provided by WMEP have generated an economic impact of $164 million and have helped create or retain 973 jobs. About two-thirds of the economic impact has been through new and retained sales.

Driven by two of the biggest venture capital financings the state has ever seen, Wisconsin start-ups pulled in nearly $108 million in the first half of the year, according to a MoneyTree Report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

MADISON, Wis. — Echometrix, which is developing new ways to diagnose the severity and measure the healing progress of musculoskeletal injuries, has expanded its leadership team and strengthened its board of directors as it prepares to roll out its first products in 2011.

Echometrix LLC said Thursday it has been issued two patents and added two new board members.

Cytometix Inc. has raised $1.9 million in equity to further development of a drug that treats pain, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

MADISON – Nelson Auner, who graduated in June from Madison East High School, is the Grand Prize winner in the second Dane County YES! youth business plan contest, producers announced Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health awarded a $20 million grant to the Medical College of Wisconsin to fund efforts to collaborate with seven other Milwaukee-area institutions to move research discoveries to patients more quickly.

IOD Inc., a Green Bay company that contracts with hospitals and clinics to handle requests for medical records, has received a $35 million investment from a Philadelphia private equity firm.

Alice.com, a Madison company that runs a Web site where manufacturers sell household goods directly to consumers, said Tuesday the former president of Target.com has joined its board of directors.

MADISON - Wisconsin's economy has been made and remade over time. Nineteenth century wheat fields gave way to modern dairy farms and cranberry bogs; territorial lead mines and turn-of-the-century logging camps eventually bowed to world-class manufacturing.

The U.S. Department of Energy has selected Milwaukee-based Astronomics Corporation of America to receive $2.8. million for a research project that aims to dramatically improve how the U.S. uses and produces energy.

Seen from the proverbial fly-over states of the Midwest, California often arouses envy with its legions of venture capitalists who foster a profusion of Golden State start-ups.

MADISON – Improving access to investment capital for entrepreneurs, building a more educated workforce, creating a stronger business climate and speeding technology from the lab to the marketplace are major themes of the Wisconsin Technology Council’s 2010-2011 “white papers” report.

Madison - The Wisconsin Technology Council will publish a new set of white papers this month including bold ideas to stimulate venture capital investment in the state.

TeraMedica, a medical informatics company, has launched its new TeraMedica Launches Cardiac Imaging and Information System (CVNA) Vendor-Neutral Architecture. This system is part as of a solution to the interoperability challenges in the Cardiology arena.

Quincy Bioscience said it has received a patent on its use of a protein derived from jellyfish that it uses for products to fight the aging process.

Steve Ostrenga's solar panel start-up will begin installing advanced robotic machinery later this year, paving the way for the firm to begin building solar panels in the Menomonee Valley by early next year.

Government-backed small-business lending in Wisconsin plummeted last month as a federal program designed to stimulate the economy expired.

A program that used state tax credits to invest in promising Wisconsin technology businesses has paid for itself several times over, according to a study by Donald Nichols, UW-Madison emeritus professor of economics and public affairs.

The "new Quad" - as Quad/Graphics Inc. has begun to call itself after completing a major acquisition - ended its first day of trading Wednesday with a small loss.

James Yarger, who owns a drug development company in Mequon, had an idea brewing in his head for some time. If cancer cells are regular cells run amok - cells with failed brakes, as it were - there must be a way to fix those brakes.

Alice.com, a Middleton-based packaged goods Internet retailer, has entered into an agreement to sell products on Buy.com, an online superstore.

MILWAUKEE - Ask the average person to describe an “entrepreneur” and it may sound a bit like a white-coated scientist emerging from a laboratory with the promise of a life-saving drug, albeit 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars away from reality.

Cellular Dynamics International and Promega Corp. have entered into a research collaboration to develop toxicity tests for drug developers that use stem-cell derived heart cells.

The latest job creation figures from the federal government have confirmed what most economists have been saying all along: The climb back from the recession will be a long one so far as many laid-off workers are concerned.

When Thomas Carmona and his brother got ready to launch CityDictionary, an online publication of local user-generated slang, they needed to resolve a few legal issues: getting an operating agreement in place, applying for a trademark and establishing terms of service for the user-generated content on the website.

Quincy Bioscience LLC is moving to a new corporate office that is four times the size of its previous headquarters.

Barbarians, villains, pillagers and plunderers - there are any number of nasty names for investment groups that take big stakes in private companies with hopes for big returns.

Ever heard of the I-Q Corridor? Unless you’re an economic development geek, probably not.

An Appleton-area start-up that is developing digital high school yearbooks for the Facebook generation has become the first information technology company and the first in the Fox Valley to win the top prize in the Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Contest.

MILWAUKEE -- Entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs are nothing if not brave, so they packed a workshop on “killer mistakes” at Tuesday’s Wisconsin Entrepreneurs Conference – bracing to hear how things can go wrong.

A Delafield company that says it's on the cusp of a video revolution in the hiring business said Monday it has commitments pledged for more than $1 million in funding.

The original Wisconsin Economic Summits served their purpose by fading away.

That’s not to say the four summits that took place between 2000 and 2003 were unsuccessful. In fact, the first two summits identified economic trends and strategies that continue to shape the state. The final two summits felt more like an academic exercise, however, and too few business leaders were on hand to carry the torch forward. As a result, the process ended on more of a whisper than a bang.

For the fifth consecutive year, M&I Bank was recognized by the Wisconsin Small Business Administration (SBA) as the 504 Loan Program Lender of the Year.

FluGen Inc. has gotten rights from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to further develop a new class of antiviral drugs with the potential to stop viruses after a patient has been infected, the Madison start-up said Tuesday morning.

Virent Energy Systems Inc. of Madison is looking to accelerate its development of renewable fuels after it raised $46.4 million in its latest financing round.

Madison, Wis. - A new $4.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) completes a major milestone of Wisconsin’s BioAg Gateway, a center for cutting-edge, sustainable plant science research and commercialization, with the construction of the Midwest BioLink Commercialization and Business Center.

An overwhelming 91% of Wisconsin's investment bankers and others expect an increase in mergers and acquisition activity in their markets during in the next six months, according an ACG-Thomson Reuters DealMakers Survey released Thursday.