WisBusiness: Governor’s Business Plan contest field narrows

By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com

MADISON – Judges have winnowed 200 entrants in the 2005 Governor’s Business Plan competition down to 52 for the second phase of the contest.

Gov. Jim Doyle will announce the winners on June 7 at the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference in the Milwaukee Hyatt Regency. The contest is in its second year.

Last year’s grand prize winners were Middleton-based BioSystems Development, which makes tools for drug researchers and NovaScan, which has a new breast-scanning technology.

The two start-ups split $55,000 and gained instant credibility with their win. When they presented at November’s Life Science Conference at Monona Terrace, potential investors knew their business plans had been scrutinized and refined.

Scott Fulton, BioSystem Development’s CEO, said the money was greatly appreciated, but the attention his company garnered from the business contest award has been an even bigger help.

He said the company now has a working prototype and is filing its patent applications.

“We’re still very much in the boot-strapping mode,” he explained. He said his start-up is trying to raise money from angels and other backers to get the prototype turned into a product for customer testing.

Because Fulton is focusing the majority of his time on wooing investors, he said the business plan contest honor is especially important.

“We’re looking to raise $500,000,” he said. “It’s not easy, it’s a slow process. But we’ve had a lot of interest and a couple of near-miss deals.”

“But the fact that we were a co-winner has made an enormous difference,” he said. “We had instant validation and it told people that we were at least worth looking at.”

Fulton said he has had talks with angel investors and companies that might be interested in buying equity in the company.

“It’s a starting point,” he said. “We’re hopeful we’ll get there fairly soon.”

Fulton, who lived in Boston for 30 years, said he has talked to several venture capital firms in his old stomping grounds.

“Having that cachet as a co-winner opened doors where people really wouldn’t have wanted to talk to us,” he said.

“And while we’re at least a year away from getting VCs to invest in us, they at least know what we’re about,” he said. “They told us to stay in touch.”

Mark Bugher, chairman of the Wisconsin Technology Council, said the 52 entrants that made the cut came from 23 cities and towns around the state.

Communities with plans in the second phase of judging are: Madison (9); Milwaukee (8); Green Bay (5); Brookfield and Fitchburg (3 each); Eau Claire, Hortonville, Middleton, Pewaukee, Sturtevant and Wind Lake (2 each); Bayside, Brown Deer, Elm Grove, Franklin, Hartland, Kimberly, Oconomowoc, Oregon, Rothschild, Verona, Wauwatosa and West Allis.

Bugher said the quality of the competition supports the council’s belief that the Badger State has the ideas and entrepreneurs to succeed in the 21st Century economy.

“This contest will help some of the ideas grow into companies,” he said.

Phase 2 judging will run through April 1. The top 20 plans will move on to Phase 3, in which contestants will write a full business plan.