WED AM News: Strudel wins Pressure Chamber pitch competition in Madison; Evers touting HUBZone designations

August 20, 2025

— A Madison-based startup called Strudel has won this year’s Pressure Chamber pitch competition with its AI-based tech support platform.

The contest was held yesterday afternoon at The Sylvee music venue in Madison as part of Forward Fest, an annual event series focused on entrepreneurship and technology.

Strudel’s co-founder and CEO, Kristin Isaac, beat out four other competitors for the grand prize after each gave rapid-fire, 5-minute pitches and answered questions from a panel of investor judges. She was presented with the “golden suitcase” award, landing her a spot on the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce’s trip to Silicon Valley this fall to meet with venture capital firms.

“I’m feeling very grateful right now,” Isaac said after accepting the award, applauding her fellow co-founders as well as her mentors and company advisors. “Thanks to all of you, this is so amazing.”

The startup has created a platform to handle complex work that’s often done by software engineers, aimed at resolving technical issues more quickly while saving time for engineering teams. Isaac said software professionals are spending 40% of their time on technical customer support, and Strudel’s AI agent “bridges support and engineering” using various language models.

“We are building the next Epic-sized software company out of Wisconsin,” Isaac said.

She says the company is seeing “incredible traction” after launching earlier this year, with its first three business-to-business pilot customers converting to the paid model and other customer acquisitions underway. The company’s pricing structure “shows a ton of ROI” for its customers, according to Isaac.

“They’re saving tens of millions of dollars a year with our solution, so spending $250,000 or more on our solution is a no-brainer,” she said.

Isaac fielded judges’ questions about how competitors are addressing similar issues, as well as how the company’s AI is being trained. She noted Strudel can keep training data from customers “boxed in” to address potential security concerns during that process.

“We are using [large language models] as well, but our small language models are what allow us to use very specific data sets, which allow us to get super accurate and also operate at a much lower cost than only the LLM,” she said.

Strudel is currently trying to raise $500,000 with $300,000 already committed.

— Gov. Tony Evers is touting a federal HUBZone designation for four Wisconsin counties and four census tracts, aiming to boost economic activity and help businesses in those areas.

The designation announced yesterday comes after the guv in July petitioned the U.S. Small Business Administration under the Historically Underutilized Business Zone program. The request sought HUBZone status for Dunn and Waushara counties and redesignation for Florence and Sawyer counties, along with four individual census tracts in Douglas, Grant, Green and Wood counties.

Florence and Sawyer counties were already HUBZones, but were set to expire in July 2026. Now that they’re redesignated as such, their status under the program will remain through June 30, 2028, according to an Evers spokesperson. Dunn and Waushara counties, which became eligible for HUBZone designation this year, will also keep their status until then.

Evers said the designations are “a vital tool for stimulating economic growth” in the state, noting the impact on rural communities.

“By expanding access to federal contracting opportunities, these designations will help empower local businesses, create more job opportunities, and attract new investment to these areas,” he said in the release.

Under the program, businesses in these disadvantaged areas get “preferential access” to federal contracts, the announcement notes. The federal agency has set a goal of awarding at least 3% of federal contract dollars to HUBZone-certified companies each year, according to the SBA website.

The areas included in yesterday’s designation announcement are facing various economic hurdles including job losses in manufacturing and transportation, geographic isolation, lower levels of labor force participation and other challenges, the guv’s office says.

See the release and a map of HUBZone areas in the state.

— A Senate committee has voted to recommend passage of a series of bills related to unemployment insurance requirements.

The GOP-run Senate Committee on Government Operations, Labor and Economic Development voted 3-2 along party lines to recommend passage of AB 164, which would add new requirements for those completing required work searches to remain eligible for unemployment.

The bill passed the Assembly along party lines in April.

The committee also voted:

3-2 on AB 167, which would make changes to what’s considered misconduct in the termination of an employee.
3-2 on AB 162, which would require agencies overseeing workforce development programs to track and report at least annually on the performance of the programs.
3-2 on AB 168, which would make several changes to UI law, including requiring identity verification for certain benefits and requiring DWD to provide training on the UI system for employers and claimants.
3-2 on AB 169, which would allow employers to report prospective employees to the Department of Workforce Development if they don’t show up for an interview, cancel an interview or decline a job offer. Under the bill, DWD would have to consider this information when determining a person’s eligibility for unemployment insurance.

— State officials and Domtar Paper Company held a groundbreaking for a modernization project at Rothschild Dam on Lake Wausau.

The project was allocated $42 million in state funding in the latest biennial budget, according to a release from Gov. Tony Evers. It involves upgrading a 276-foot spillway section of the dam. Domtar says construction has already begun. A project overview from the company shows it’s installing two temporary cofferdams, which are structures that provide access for the construction process.

“These structures are necessary to establish safe and dry access to demolish the existing dam and to construct the new dam,” the company says.

The mill, which is owned and operated by Domtar, was commissioned in 1912. It previously powered the Rothschild Mill, though it’s no longer “core” to the operations of the mill, the guv’s office says.

Evers notes the dam has served the region for more than a century, and “modernizing it is essential to public safety, environmental sustainability, and economic vitality in North Central Wisconsin.”

See the release.

— UW-Madison is spotlighting five scientists making strides in breast cancer research, ranging from better screening options to tailored care plans for patients.

The university’s School of Medicine and Public Health this week published overviews on these researchers’ work for World Breast Cancer Research Day. Authors wrote the day is “intended to amplify the urgency of preventing disease and finding cures, as well as shine a light on critical research, including studies supported by federal funding.”

The researchers include:

*Dr. Christoph Lee, a professor of radiology and vice chair of research in the Department of Radiology, who’s focused on population-level health factors and creating new cancer screening and early detection tools. One such application is using AI to improve the field of mammography.

“If we can identify ways that artificial intelligence can improve breast cancer screening performance and outcomes, and for which women, we can provide a more precise and personalized screening approach to save more lives,” he said in a statement.

*Amy Trentham-Dietz, a professor of population health sciences with a focus on detecting breast cancer early, preventing the disease and modeling it with computer simulations. Her work aims to inform breast cancer screening policies and practice, as well as understanding other factors such as obesity and environmental exposure.

“I really care about focusing on cancer in women and the injustice of how research historically has not paid attention to women’s issues,” she said. “As a scientist, it became important for me to work on issues that had been ignored.”

*Beth Weaver, a professor of cell and regenerative biology as well as oncology. She’s exploring how radiation and other substances disrupt cell division, as well as how errors in that process affect tumors.

Her work aims to develop biomarkers to predict when a chemotherapy agent called paclitaxel will be effective in treating breast cancer, as well as new methods for overcoming drug resistance.

*Deric Wheeler, a professor of human oncology whose work is focused in part on triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease that’s harder to treat. The school’s overview notes his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer while he was pursuing his master’s degree in disease pathology.

“I started to think about what she was facing, and what other people were facing,” Wheeler said. “Then I started to crystallize on researching cancer.”

*Dr. Kari Wisinski, a professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care. She holds a leadership position at the UW Carbone Cancer Center, where she’s working on new personalized treatments for certain forms of breast cancer.

Her latest publication presented clinical trial results on combining two targeted cancer drugs to address treatment-resistant advanced triple-negative breast cancer. While this approach proved ineffective, according to the overview, she noted trials like this can offer access to “cutting-edge” experimental treatments.

“I think the biggest misconception about clinical trials is that they’re only there as a last option,” she said.

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