Milwaukee, Madison and Wisconsin

Funding Report Graphic

Two Wisconsin Companies Announce Raise of More Than $1 Million

By SPN Team / September 6, 2019

OnLume and Simply Solutions announced last week that they had raised over one million dollars in venture funding. Madison based medical device company, OnLume, filed paperwork with the SEC that they had raised $1.37 million of incremental cash.  On its website, the company describes its technology as, “intuitive and ergonomic solutions for precise fluorescene image-guided…

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Frontdesk Closes Bridge Round

By Tom Chapman / August 28, 2019

Frontdesk, a Milwaukee startup, helps corporate travelers book travel online.  The goal is to become Airbnb for business travelers seeking a place to stay akin to corporate housing.  The company states on its website: “We offer securely managed short-term stays at the best apartments in the best cities.” The company was founded in 2018 and…

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Medical company awarded major funding for Molybdenum-99 radioisotope production

By Razia Aziz-Seible / August 8, 2019

NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, LLC formerly of Madison, Wisconsin now headquartered in Beloit, is the recipient of a $15 million cooperative agreement award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA). This funding on July 23rd, is part of ongoing support by the DOE/NNSA to establish a stable domestically produced non-uranium-based source of…

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BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation – enticing graduates and companies to stay native to the state of Wisconsin

By Justin Krug / August 8, 2019

BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation, or “BrightStar”, celebrated their sixth anniversary in July of this year. The organization has come quite far since its founding. So, what do they do? BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation is an entity looking to fill the early-stage funding void by providing charitable foundations, corporations, and wealthy individuals with a vehicle to help fund…

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Ideawake raises $780k in funding

By Justin Krug / July 30, 2019

Ideawake, a Milwaukee based provider of cloud-based management software, announced this summer that it raised $780k in funding. The company’s most recent round of $780,000 (according to Pitchbook), in the second quarter, continues its strong fundraising efforts.  Current funders include BrightStar Wisconsin, a state-wide funding source for funding early stage companies as a mechanism to…

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Live Undiscovered Music (LÜM) closes seed funding round

By Aidan Chapman / July 18, 2019

In May, Live Undiscovered Music, or LÜM received $750,000 in seed round funding.  LÜM is a music streaming service that is based in Madison, Wisconsin. This platform is different than Spotify or Pandora because as the name suggests, it features music of artists who are undiscovered.   LÜM’s steaming service is unique because its platform…

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OnLume raises funds for system that makes fluorescence image-guided surgery possible under bright lights

By Razia Aziz-Seible / June 25, 2019

Medical device company OnLume obtained $749,000 in its first round of venture funding on May 17, 2019 from an undisclosed source to further develop its platform. This spinoff company from the University of Wisconsin–Madison was previously financed via a $300K Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant through the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at…

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Your guide to the Heartland’s 1 Million Cups events

By Razia Aziz-Seible / June 17, 2019

1 Million Cups was developed in Kansas City, MO in 2012 by Co-Founders Cameron Cushman and Nate Olson who were working at the time on the Entrepreneurship Team at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.  What began as an experiment to bring entrepreneurs in one city together over a cup of coffee towards a goal of…

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