Wisconsin is making a name for itself on the national tech scene. Most recently, Cushman & Wakefield highlighted Madison as a Top 10 Tech City in this report, and thriving technology startups can be found all across the state.
Wisconsin’s relatively low cost of living, combined with tax incentives, exemptions and credits, makes it more affordable for founders to start and ramp up a new business.
Here are five startups that are taking advantage of these benefits and changing the tech industry from right here in Wisconsin:
This startup, which spun out of research from the Medical College of Wisconsin, has now raised more than $21 million, including a recent $10 million funding round. The company recently launched its first product, a non-invasive test for heart transplant monitoring, and will soon develop a pan-organ strategy with similar tests for lungs and kidneys.
Inc. magazine has hailed SwanLeap as the fastest-growing private company in the U.S. The company uses artificial intelligence in its transportation-management software applications, optimizing execution across the supply chain while helping companies turn freight into a profit center. SwanLeap estimates that it delivers an annual average transportation savings of 26.7 percent to its customers.
Jamf was started to realize a better technology-management solution for the hundreds of Apple computers on the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC) campus. As a student at UWEC, Jamf co-founder Zach Halmstad worked full-time in the IT department deploying, updating and tracking more than 400 student and faculty Macs. After years of wishing there were a smarter, more efficient way to do this, he decided to create one.
Dedicated to closing connectivity gaps through its powerful hardware and software solutions, Fasetto was founded in 2013 following a Kickstarter campaign. After entering WEDC’s Qualified New Business Venture (QNBV) Program, which certifies startups and thus allows angel and venture fund investors to receive tax credits for investing in them, Fasetto began developing technology that allows users easy access to their content and the ability to view and share it with others regardless of platform, device or connection type. Since its launch, Fasetto has raised $7 million from Wisconsin investors it connected with through QNBV. LINK by Fasetto is a living storage and communications device powered by the most powerful Samsung technologies. It combines the capabilities of an LTE hotspot with the large storage of a NAS in a pocket-sized, weatherproof device, and it soon will be available to consumers.
Socialeads is an artificial intelligence platform that helps financial services companies and their advisors automatically know the size, depth and value of their professional and personal social networks. Its platform uses advanced machine learning and natural language processing to understand the meaning and context of social media posts and the activities, personality, sentiment, emotionality and behaviors that reveal top prospects and referrers. This helps advisors know who in their network of connections is the right person to contact at the right time for the right product. Socialeads created a product that addressed Northwestern Mutual’s challenges regarding salesperson market potential and referral friction, and thus was named the winner of the company’s reverse pitch competition. As a result, Socialeads received a seed investment of $85,000 from Northwestern Mutual’s Cream City Venture Capital Fund, as well as corporate mentorship and working space in the Innovation Lab at Northwestern Mutual’s headquarters in downtown Milwaukee.
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