New Website Promotes Innovation & Emerging Businesses in Wisconsin

Visitors of the newly launched Happening.InWisconsin.com, an extension of InWisconsin.com, can learn more about the latest ideas, discoveries and innovation taking place throughout the state. The site offers an interactive overview of the state’s culture of innovation and growing entrepreneurial community.

Happening.InWisconsin.com takes a deeper look into the innovation occurring in a variety of the state’s industries, including water technology; bioscience; health care technology; information technology; and energy, power and control. Each industry section features snapshots of the startups, technologies and entrepreneurs that are fueling the sector’s growth throughout the state.

“The industries highlighted on the site are expanding rapidly throughout the state,” says Lisa Johnson, vice president of entrepreneurship and innovation at WEDC, “and the site breaks down the innovative ideas and startups that are happening in Wisconsin. Even further, the website serves as an exploratory tool for every entrepreneur, no matter if their business is launching or scaling.”

The new website features videos of innovative, young companies in Wisconsin such as Murfie, Healthfinch and Whole Trees.

Murfie.com is a Madison-based site designed for music lovers to convert and store compact discs as digital files. The site also provides the option to sell unwanted discs. In 2012, Murfie.com was the recipient of a $500,000 Technology Development Loan from WEDC to assist the company with research and development along with commercialization.  Since then, the company has been steadily gaining popularity, and was recently featured on Yahoo News and in USA Today.

This is one of many examples showcasing how the state is fostering a vibrant, startup business culture for young entrepreneurs.

The website, with its photography and simple design, features compelling facts about various industries and videos of entrepreneurs who were able to transform their business ideas into successful companies.

“Happening.InWisconsin.com will evolve over time with more photography and fresh, new content, highlighting young, successful businesses throughout the state,” Johnson says.

The site also provides emerging business owners with more information about WEDC funding to jump-start their business endeavors through tax credits, loans, grants and mentorship programs. Entrepreneurs can directly connect with a WEDC representative in the Contact Us section, located at the very bottom of the page, helping them determine specific resources that would be the best fit for their needs.

“The whole idea of the site is to showcase the exciting innovations happening throughout the state, and to ultimately accelerate the growth of startups here.” Johnson says. “We want entrepreneurs to know that their business ideas can come to life in Wisconsin.”

(April 2015)