FRI AM News: WisBusiness: the Podcast with Steve Goldberg, WEA Member Benefits Foundation; Early-stage investing in WI declined last year, Tech Council figures show

July 11, 2025

— This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Steve Goldberg, executive director of the WEA Member Benefits Foundation.

The foundation is linked to the company, which provides insurance and retirement services for about 90,000 educators in Wisconsin across more than 400 school districts. In recent years, the foundation has put a focus on student mental health in the state, aimed at addressing this rising challenge.

“We went to school districts all over the state and asked them what keeps them up at night, and the superintendents told us that student mental health was one of their top concerns and one of the top challenges that they were facing,” he said.

Goldberg discusses the foundation’s efforts to help raise funds for these school districts from the private sector, coordinating philanthropic donations from across the state.

He also highlights a statewide K-12 student art contest the foundation, underlining the importance of the arts for fostering better self-esteem, mental health and wellbeing. The contest gets between 200 and 300 entries every year through art teachers, and 11 awards are given out to recognize the winners.

The podcast explores the trend of students feeling increasing levels of stress, depression and anxiety, as Goldberg notes social media and political divisiveness are playing a role. He also references more recent developments around immigration enforcement and deportation threats.

“Those factors are relatively recent, but they just have added to the stress that young people are feeling historically,” he said. “That spiked during COVID, and some of that has diminished, but there are still a high percentage, about 23% of all students in Wisconsin schools, are diagnosed with mental health or behavioral health conditions.”

Of that number, only half received treatment last year, Goldberg said. He also noted a shortage of mental health practitioners both in Wisconsin and across the country, as well as “shrinking” budgets for mental health at school districts in the state.

“We’ve been providing them with starter grants to help strengthen their approach to student mental health, and then we’ve been helping them tell their story in their local community by opening doors for them to meet with funders,” he said. “And those funders are coming through with additional funding to supplement what we provide.”

Listen to the podcast and see the full list of WisBusiness.com podcasts.

— Early-stage investment in Wisconsin continues to decline from its 2021 peak as the state is largely missing out on AI-related investment activity.

Wisconsin last year saw about $374 million in early-stage capital raised through 92 deals, according to figures collected by the Wisconsin Technology Council and presented yesterday at a luncheon event in downtown Milwaukee.

The figures for 2024 marked a decline from 2023’s totals of $490 million and 107 deals. The prior year had the same number of deals but a higher total with $640 million, but even that was a substantial decline from the standout year of 2021, when the state had $869 million raised through 140 deals.

While the state has generally followed the national trends for investment activity in 2021, 2022 and 2023, that changed in 2024 as the national picture improved from the prior year.

“If you look in 2024, our numbers are down whereas the national numbers are up, so something is happening,” Tech Council Investor Networks director Joe Kremer said yesterday, adding “we’re starting to slip.”

The national increase is a result of more venture capital dollars being funneled into artificial intelligence, experts said during yesterday’s event. But Wisconsin doesn’t seem to be benefitting from this AI investing boom as much as the country overall.

Mary Hannes, associate director of Golden Angels Investors in Brookfield, said national VC growth last year was “driven heavily by the huge AI investments” in leading companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. At the same time, numerous smaller companies are also raising rounds and contributing to the broader national trend.

But in Wisconsin, the top deals for last year were largely clustered in health care, Hannes noted.

“We did not see that kind of mix of a whole bunch of new AI investing in the state, like they saw nationally,” she said yesterday. “And even nationally, as you can think about it, it’s pockets … I’m sure they didn’t get that in Iowa or Minnesota, right, it’s on the coasts and other tech hubs.”

Brian Lindstrom, a partner at HealthX Ventures in Madison, echoed her sentiment on Wisconsin missing out on the “AI revolution.” He noted as much as 50% of all investments are going into AI applications and “valuations are crazy” for these businesses.

“I’d love to see more of that in Wisconsin,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kremer said the state’s top 10 largest deals for 2024 represent a smaller pool of money than in recent years, noting “we’re seeing the slippage” in this measure.

The single largest deal from last year was Elephas Biosciences’ $55 million round, and the top 10 together equaled about $263 million. In 2023 and 2022, the largest deals were for $156 million and $240 million, pushing up the total amount for the top 10 for those years to $359 million and $473 million, respectively.

These figures and other findings will be included in the Tech Council’s 2025 Wisconsin Portfolio report, which will be released in the coming weeks. See reports for earlier years here.

— The UW Board of Regents voted unanimously to give campuses the option to raise tuition by at least 5%, citing declining state support and the need to support higher wages for faculty and staff.

Yesterday’s move comes on the heels of the state budget providing a net increase of nearly $240 million in state aid to the system over the 2025-27 biennium after university officials had sought $855 million.

“We all hoped for a state budget more aligned with the board’s request, which would have negated the need to enact any tuition increase for Wisconsin students,” Regent Ashok Rai said at the Board of Regents meeting. “But it is equally necessary to maintain exceptional academic quality and student support so that the Universities of Wisconsin can continue to deliver life-changing educational opportunities.”

Under the tuition increase, universities would raise tuition by 4% for the academic year, with an optional additional 1%. Only UW-Green Bay plans to not take the additional 1%.

UW Vice President for Finance and Administration Julie Gordon said this would likely lead to an additional $49 million in one-time revenue.

Gordon said UW plans to allot $29.7 million of that revenue to general wage adjustments. UW had requested the state fully fund wage adjustments in the budget, but the state did not grant that request. Per accepted policy, the state budget will fund 70% of the wage adjustments and the university must provide the other 30%.

The budget included funding for general wage adjustments of 3% this year and an additional 2% on July 1, 2026.

It also includes $27 million annually for UW for merit and market-based compensation to attract faculty in high-demand fields. That provision requires the system to submit a plan to the Joint Committee on Employment Relations on how the funds would be used before the money is released.

See more at WisPolitics.

Wisconsin students may pay 5% more in tuition at UW-Madison this fall

Kohl’s executives hope to protect customers from price increases tied to Trump tariffs

TOPICS

AGRIBUSINESS

– WI budget 2025-27 – wins and losses for family farmers

EDUCATION

– UW-Madison closes DEI division, moves programs to other departments

– University of Wisconsin to raise tuition for third year in a row

ENVIRONMENT

– Report: Most Wisconsin coastal beaches were potentially unsafe for swimming for at least 1 day

– Conservation matters left out of state budget might still find support