This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Ross Leinweber, managing director for Bold Coast Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Milwaukee. As a geographically focused fund, Bold Coast Capital will only be investing in startups based in Wisconsin. The fund recently announced its first closing, and Leinweber discusses the areas of the state he’ll be targeting for investment. “I think what you see in Madison is a much more mature community,” he said. “You have an entrenched set of investors, advocates that have been engaged with entrepreneurial activities for a longer period of time.” Milwaukee, on the other hand, has a core manufacturing community that’s helped build up the city’s broader business ecosystem. “That particular industry, potentially, has been a little bit more reserved or conservative in regards to engaging with some of the newer technologies,” he said. “We’re at a really critical time in which that particular industry is embracing the entrepreneurship movement, so it makes Milwaukee really compelling from an investment perspective.” Leinweber’s fund is backed by the Badger Fund of Funds, which was the anchor investor for the fund. Other participants included local investors from Wisconsin and outside firms from four different states.

WisBusiness: The Podcast

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Ross Leinweber for Bold Coast Capital

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with returning guest Sheila Long, founder of MalamaDoe. She discusses what’s new with her Milwaukee-based coworking community for women including a new incubator program aimed at helping members grow their businesses. After categorizing companies into various stages of development, Long is looking to provide personalized guidance on how to reach the next level. “I’m very excited about rolling out this incubator,” she said. “We have a calendar of events, of different opportunities that women businesses can be a part of.” The co-working space now has 26 member businesses and Long said she’s about to begin one-on-one interviews to determine their specific needs. Long also explains a term called “focused fulfillment” and the role it plays in limiting business growth. “I want them to keep growing, because we really need more women on boards, and we need more women CEOs, and we need more women represented at tables,” she said. “If we continue to just stop and settle … we really won’t make a lot of progress for women.”

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Sheila Long, founder of MalamaDoe

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Jennifer Gottwald, director of licensing for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. In the podcast, Gottwald discusses a persistent gender gap in patenting and details strategies for improving diversity in the field. She previews the message she’ll be bringing to an upcoming meeting of the Madison Women in Intellectual Property, or MadWIP. The Jan. 24 luncheon will be held at the Foley & Lardner offices in Madison, where Gottwald will discuss unconscious biases and the effects they’re having on patenting. She explained that many more patent applications are submitted by men than women, though the disparity is improving slowly. “A system was set up for people who were in the science and technology jobs a long time ago, when it mostly was a more homogenous group, and that system doesn’t necessarily fit what we’re doing today,” she said. “We’re getting more and more women in science and engineering — especially at the university level and in companies — but they often are not the people recognizing themselves as inventors, or going through the disclosure process and filing patents.” She also provides an overview of the licensing process at WARF, which handles tech transfer and commercialization for UW-Madison.

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Jennifer Gottwald, director of licensing for WARF

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Rose Oswald Poels, president of the Wisconsin Bankers Association. In the podcast, Oswald Poels discusses her biggest takeaways from the 15th annual Wisconsin Economic Forecast Luncheon, highlighting comments from WEDC Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes as well as Bullard. She also discusses results from recent polling of WBA members showing bankers in the state have a largely positive outlook for Wisconsin’s economy in 2020. “I’m very pleased to report that for several years in a row now, we continue to see steady growth in Wisconsin throughout 2019, and expect that positive trend to continue through 2020,” she said. In her comments to luncheon attendees, Poels noted the banking industry saw 17 mergers announced in 2019 that affect Wisconsin banks. But she expects the pace of bank merger activity to decrease in the coming year. “Despite these mergers, the size of Wisconsin banks will continue to grow throughout 2020 as they did last year, as long as the economy continues its moderate growth rate,” she said. She cited a recent survey of WBA member CEOs that found 95 percent expect the state’s economy to stay strong or improve this year.

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Rose Oswald Poels, president of the Wisconsin Bankers Association

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Ben Camp, CEO and co-founder of RehabPath, a Madison-based startup that helps people find treatment options by aggregating online information and providing other resources. “We have a global reach; one of our premier websites is actually in India, so it’s one of the top places for people in India to find addiction treatment,” he said. “We have some websites covering lots of other markets internationally.” Camp told WisBusiness.com the platform will soon be launching in the United Kingdom, and he plans to launch in the United States after raising more capital. The company recently announced a $200,000 investment from fellow Madison entrepreneur Shree Kalluri, who leads a startup called Zerology. Company leaders recently launched a crowdfunding investment round, and Camp explains on the podcast how this effort differs from Kickstarter campaigns. “You’re not just kind of supporting us and getting a perk or something, you’re actually getting equity in the company,” he said.

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Ben Camp, CEO and co-founder of RehabPath

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Teresa Esser, managing director for Silicon Pastures, an angel investor network based in Milwaukee. “We look for entrepreneurs who we believe can build strong, valuable businesses in our city and our state and region,” she said. Since the network is based in Milwaukee, she says it’s easier to work with companies based in southeast Wisconsin. But she noted Silicon Pastures has been investing across the state and elsewhere for about two decades. In the podcast, Esser discusses the Milwaukee Rotary Club and the Invest in Milwaukee Committee. This group has been meeting throughout the year and exploring how resources can be directed to new and emerging businesses in the city. She compares investment resources in Wisconsin with other states, breaking down how the state falls behind others. “What would Milwaukee look like if we invested more of our risk capital right here in our early-stage businesses?” she said. “What would Wisconsin look like if we took a portion of the capitol we are currently exporting to venture capital fund managers on the east and west coasts, and we started to put that to work in Wisconsin?”

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Teresa Esser, managing director for Silicon Pastures

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Richelle Martin, managing director of the Winnow Fund, a women-led fund that’s based in the state and investing in Wisconsin companies. In the podcast, Martin talks about the challenges associated with entering the venture capital world, particularly for certain underrepresented groups. “Venture in general for anyone is not easy. Fundraising is not easy. Quitting your job to go into this and fundraising while not getting paid is not easy,” she said. “It does still take a certain kind of person who’s maybe a little more risk-tolerant.” She also discusses the Badger Fund of Funds, and how the state can do more to support entrepreneurs and investing in Wisconsin.

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Richelle Martin, managing director of the Winnow Fund

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Manuel Altuzar, president and owner of Globaltranz Consulting, an agricultural staffing agency based in Madison. The company got its start in 1996 as a translation and interpretation services provider and has since grown to offer consulting for dairy and swine farmers, as well as other producers. It now has marketing services as well and consults with businesses expanding to Spanish-speaking areas outside of the country. Globaltranz Consulting is active in 17 states and Altuzar recently told WisBusiness.com that Missouri is his next target for expansion. In the podcast, Altuzar discusses the rising need for skilled employees in the agricultural industry, as well as some of the related pressures placed on farmers and their families. His business has expanded in recent years as demand has “skyrocketed,” particularly in the Midwest. He also talks about the state’s dairy culture, as well as his personal connections to Wisconsin and his alma mater UW-Madison. “When I came to Wisconsin 25 years ago, I felt welcome from day one,” he said. “And I remember thinking, this is home.”

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Manuel Altuzar, owner of Globaltranz Consulting

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Clay Burdelik, a Madison-based entrepreneur who recently launched a new venture called Cockpit Mobile. He built his company’s software with a team of developers at StartingBlock Madison, an entrepreneurial hub and coworking space. The platform helps event organizers and workers coordinate tasks and communicate through a news feed. Burdelik and his team launched the company earlier in the summer, and have piloted at several music festivals including Austin City Limits, Voodoo Fest in New Orleans and Freakfest in Madison. In the podcast, Burdelik discusses a recent pivot he made after realizing his previous venture wasn’t viable. He talks about lessons learned from the recent pilots, and details plans to expand to other large outdoor events such as marathons and triathlons. “They’re great events that we can get set up really quickly,” he said. “They can be up and running in the environment in 10 minutes. Let’s say a 5K or 10k, it can really help them with their volunteer coordination.”

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Clay Burdelik for Cockpit Mobile

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Katie Gold, a researcher and graduate of UW-Madison who helped develop a method for earlier detection of plant disease. “Disease today is one of the biggest problems in agricultural production; billions of dollars are lost every single year due to disease,” she said. “We estimate about 30 percent yield lost globally.” She and her colleagues combined advanced field, aerial and satellite-based methods of disease detection to identify infections before visual symptoms manifested. They started with late blight in potatoes, which famously led to the Irish Potato Famine. And she said late blight represents one of the biggest problems for Wisconsin’s potato industry. Gold says the disease continues to impact human populations around the world, and this method could offer a new way to get ahead of disastrous outbreaks. Gold was one of the featured researchers who presented this week as part of WARF Innovation Day. In the podcast, she discusses how the new detection method could be broadly applied to other plant diseases, and highlights next steps for the development of the technology.

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Katie Gold, plant disease researcher

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Doug Stafford, president and CEO of Pantherics Inc., a Milwaukee startup developing a pill-based alternative to treat asthma. His company spun out of research from UW-Milwaukee, focused on ways to treat various inflammatory diseases of smooth muscles, including asthma, irritable bowel syndrome and other conditions. “In asthma, there’s inflammation in the lung, and as a result of the inflammation, the muscle in the airways contract and that’s responsible for the difficulty breathing,” he said. “But it’s not just in the lung — there are other conditions in other organs in the body that have a similar disease process.” Stafford, who’s also the director for the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery, explained his company is approaching the problem with a platform technology to create new drugs for various inflammatory diseases. “The current treatments, even in asthma, are unsatisfactory in many different ways,” he said. “Drugs are either not very effective, or in the case of steroids that are used in asthma, there are many adverse effects.”

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Doug Stafford, president and CEO of Pantherics

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Laura Heisler, director of the Wisconsin Science Festival. The podcast centers on the upcoming events, which run Oct. 17-20 with discussions, presentations and experiments planned across the entire state. It’s been held every year since 2011, around the same time the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery was launched on UW-Madison’s campus. “We were really interested in creating a community connection between scientific research at UW-Madison — but also more broadly across the state — and the citizens of Wisconsin,” she said. Heisler says the Wisconsin Science Festival is part of a “global movement” of science festivals that have been rising in popularity over the past decade. “Every place that started the festival has seen it thrive and grow over the past 10 years,” she said. Hundreds of events are being held in dozens of communities across the state, covering topics in the fields of: technology, math and engineering; sports, health and medicine; agriculture and the environment; and a number of other focus areas. In the podcast, Heisler spotlights events of interest to the state’s business community.

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Laura Heisler, director of the Wisconsin Science Festival

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Shree Kalluri, CEO and founder of a Madison startup called Zerology. Kalluri and others announced this week that Zerology is partnering with Green Cab of Madison to replace the taxi cab company’s hybrid electric fleet with fully electric Tesla Model 3s. In the podcast, he explains what drove him to launch his tech startup earlier this year. Over the past 20 years, Kalluri has seen “phenomenal growth” in the Madison area but notes that development has led to congested freeways and rising emissions. He says partnering with Green Cab is just the first step toward revolutionizing transportation in Madison, including initiatives related to public transit in the region. “Madison is an amazing community,” he said. “Let’s make Madison the most sustainable city in the world — let’s show the world how it’s done.”

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Shree Kalluri, founder and CEO of Zerology

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Matt Cordio, president of Skills Pipeline, Startup Milwaukee and Startup Wisconsin. The podcast centers on the upcoming Startup Wisconsin Week, which is anchored by Startup Milwaukee Week. It will be held Nov. 11-17, with over 50 events in Milwaukee alone and many more spread across the state. He says these initiatives “are focused on connecting, educating and celebrating high-growth tech entrepreneurs” throughout Wisconsin. “We think they’re a critical part of the economy as we evolve forward to a tech-driven economy,” he said. Events will highlight the various organizations working in the startup space, in places like Appleton, Beloit and Eau Claire, as well as Madison and Milwaukee. “We’re also excited too about what’s happening in Green Bay, with Titletown Tech, that’ll be heavily highlighted,” he said. “Also in those smaller cities too, like Beloit — they have 15 events there, and it’s really been interesting to continue to watch the transformation of Beloit’s economy to a tech-driven economy driven by Hendricks Commercial Properties.” In the podcast, Cordio also touches on the “concerning trend” of Milwaukee lagging behind Madison in terms of venture capital activity. “If we aren’t punching at our weight in terms of venture investment dollars, we need to really focus on fixing that,” he said.

WisBusiness: the Podcast with Matt Cordio, president and founder of Startup Milwaukee

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” features Sheila Long, founder of MalamaDoe, a Milwaukee-area coworking community for women. “We’re an inclusive working community for every woman, so we’re all about building community one woman at a time,” she said. “And we really want to help women increase their reach in business and grow businesses, or grow their place at the table.” The companies represented in MalamaDoe are diverse, including a battery technology company, an attorney focused on startups and nonprofits, a travel agency, an online clothing retailer and other women-led businesses. Long discusses the importance of leadership and role models in her coworking space, and gives her take on what leaders in the state can do to foster the growth of women-led companies.

Weekly podcast featuring Wisconsin startups and business leaders

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WisBusiness: The Podcast

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