THU AM News: Idea Fund of La Crosse raises $31.5M for second VC fund; Farmers for Sustainable Food releases impact figures

May 16, 2024

— The Idea Fund of La Crosse has raised $31.5 million for a second venture capital fund, targeting startups in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.

The VC firm yesterday announced the fund, which aims to invest in pre-revenue and early-stage businesses in agriculture, manufacturing, health care and logistics.

The release notes the Idea Fund of La Crosse II fund is among the three largest funds ever that are focused on the three-state region, based on Pitchbook data. It will make initial investments of between $500,000 and $1 million in about 20 startups, according to yesterday’s announcement.

Idea Fund of La Crosse General Partner Jonathan Horne highlights the “tough market” facing investors, as venture capital fundraising is the lowest it’s been in a decade.

“The new funding allows us to lean in, scaling our offerings and helping our portfolio companies move even faster and farther,” he said in a statement. “Challenging times can create great companies. With venture markets contracting, supporting our region’s most promising entrepreneurs is now more important than ever.”

The fund is also announcing its first investments: Golgix, a Milwaukee-based company developing AI for manufacturing applications; an e-commerce business based in Brookfield called Distribution Depot; Lumberjack, a service for managing property services with offices in Minnesota; and Hopper Health, a health care platform for neurodivergent people.

“By layering sophisticated technical capabilities over our region’s deep industry expertise, we aim to invest in startups creating overwhelming value propositions,” Horne said.

Along with the new fund and first batch of investments, the Idea Fund of La Crosse yesterday announced a new partnership with California-based private investment firm Pablo Capital. This organization includes a co-founder and early employees of Jamf, a successful technology business that was founded in Eau Claire in 2002.

Zach Halmstad, Jamf co-founder and partner in Pablo Capital, says the Upper Midwest region has “great potential to build a more vibrant startup community” and more success stories.

“We’re excited to work with the Idea Fund to help make that happen and have more direct connection for founders to potential capital,” he said in a statement. “This partnership will be an incredible value-add to folks looking to build a business in our region.”

See the release and listen to an earlier podcast with Horne.

— A group of Wisconsin farmers last year reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 34,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, equal to the annual emissions of about 8,000 cars.

That’s according to Farmers for Sustainable Food’s latest annual conservation survey, tapping the 254 participating farmers from six different groups supported by the nonprofit organization. They collectively represent nearly 250,000 acres and about 350,000 head of livestock, according to yesterday’s release.

Surveyed farmers are involved in efforts such as soil sampling, nutrient management planning, planting cover crops, reduced and no-tillage practices, “low disturbance” manure application and more. Along with the emissions reduction, farmers prevented nearly 340,000 tons of sediment loss from their fields — equal to about 34,000 dump trucks full of soil.

They also reduced phosphorus runoff by about 420,000 pounds, potentially preventing more than 211 million pounds of harmful algae growth in nearby waters, the release shows.

Farmers for Sustainable Food Managing Director Lauren Brey says farmers in the state are “making remarkable progress in sustainable farming” and the survey data shows it’s working.

“We are proud to partner with the farmer-led groups in their conservation efforts and recognize the extraordinary impact they have on improving the environment and their local communities,” she said in a statement.

Groups represented in the survey include Calumet County Ag Stewardship Alliance, Dodge County Farmers for Healthy Soil Healthy Water, Lafayette Ag Stewardship Alliance, Peninsula Pride Farms, Sheboygan River Progressive Farmers and Western Wisconsin Conservation Council.

See the release.

Listen to a recent podcast with Brey.

— The Water Council has confirmed the group hasn’t had ties to two Israeli-government-owned water organizations since 2019, contradicting UW-Milwaukee leaders’ claim Chancellor Mark Mone convinced it to end relations with the organizations.

The clarification comes after WisPolitics previously reported Mone had successfully urged The Water Council to cut ties with Mekorot and Israel Innovation Authority. In the agreement UWM reached with pro-Palestinian protesters, Mone and UWM leaders claimed “At the Chancellor’s urging, the Water Council no longer has relationships with these entities, and they have been removed from the global listing on the Water Council’s website.”

The Water Council in a statement noted Mekorot and Israel Innovation Authority were never members of the Water Council, and it hasn’t had any formal ties, ongoing projects or financial interests with any company or organization in Israel or the Middle East in recent history.

“The Water Council also wants to emphasize it has no position with respect to accusations regarding Mekorot and Israel Innovation Authority. Any insinuation that The Water Council’s inactivity with Mekorot and Israel Innovation Authority pertains to these accusations is false,” the statement said.

A spokesperson for the group told WisPolitics it removed Mekorot and Israel Innovation Authority from its global directory to reflect that they are not active partners.

In a statement to WisPolitics, a UWM spokesperson said the university “appreciates the Water Council’s correction of the erroneous information that appeared in UWM’s agreement with the student protesters.”

The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a follow-up question from WisPolitics asking why the agreement claimed Mone had convinced The Water Council to cut ties with the groups.

— UW-Madison has announced the launch of the Initiative for Theranostics and Particle Therapy, which aims to advance treatment for patients at the UW Carbone Cancer Center.

This joint effort of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and UW Health will focus on translational research with potential health impacts, according to a release.

It will draw on expertise in medical oncology, nuclear medicine, medical physics and other disciplines to improve precision radiation therapy and imaging. The initiative will also create graduate and fellowship training programs for related specialties.

Participating researchers will explore the effectiveness of particle beam radiation on certain hard-to-treat cancers, personalized treatment applications and more. The initiative will also seek to advance the field of theranostics, in which diagnosis and treatment are done in a single step through the use of radioactive drugs, as well as dosimetry, which personalizes treatment doses for specific patients.

“Researchers with the initiative will be doing critically important work to advance the translation of theranostics and particle therapy into curative treatments for patients with metastatic cancers,” said Dr. John Floberg, an assistant professor of human oncology at the UW SMPH and a radiation oncologist at UW Health.

Funding for the initiative includes $20 million in grants from the National Cancer Institute and a $1.5 million seed investment from WARF, according to Anjon Audhya, senior associate dean for basic research, biotechnology, and graduate studies at the UW SMPH.

“This support is critical because ultimately, our goal is to be the preeminent site for preclinical and clinical theranostics research globally,” he said in the release.

See the release below and see more on the initiative.

Top stories from the Health Care Report…

— Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin are planning to open a new health clinic in Milwaukee next year, the health network announced.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

Sign up here.

— UW-Madison’s Discovery to Product Innovation to Market program is taking applications until midnight Sunday for the eight-week course.

It takes place every Wednesday from June 5 through July 31 and includes five live online classroom sessions plus weekly mentor check-ins for participating entrepreneurs.

The course will prepare teams to find product-market fit, the first step in the commercialization process. Participants will interview customers and other influencers as they test the market need for their innovation. They also will learn to incorporate startup tools and techniques such as customer discovery, desk research, in-depth customer interviews and value proposition design.

Innovation to Market is free and open to University of Wisconsin faculty, staff and students as well as employees of affiliate organizations.

See more at Madison Startups.

— Though wet conditions are still slowing down spring planting, farmers in the state continue to make progress faster than the five-year average.

The USDA’s latest crop progress report shows the state’s corn planting was 40% complete at latest count, which is three days ahead of last year’s pace and one day ahead of the average.

Similarly, soybean planting was 37% complete, five days ahead of last year and four days ahead of the average.

Meanwhile, oat planting was 68% finished, which is six days ahead of last year and three days ahead of the average. And 80% of potato acreage has been planted — eight days ahead of last year and six days ahead of the average.

See the report.

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