This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with WARF Ventures Partner Greg Keenan.
The discussion explores the path ahead for the recently announced Third Coast Foundry effort, a two-year pilot project involving UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation along with seven other universities.
It’s anchored by a 3,500-square-foot workspace and event center in San Francisco’s South park neighborhood, envisioned as a hub for linking with venture capital and startup activity in the area.
“It really is a way for us, as a collection of some of the top research universities in the Midwest, to connect our universities to investors, talent, alumni and certainly with each other in the hotbed of startup and tech investing,” Keenan said.
Other participating universities include: Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, The Ohio State University, Purdue University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Washington University in St. Louis.
A key element of the effort is “connecting our amazing technologies out of our universities to the deep investment pools of capital” on the West Coast, Keenan said.
The area surrounding the Third Coast Foundry site has more than $100 billion in assets under management, all within a 10-minute walk from the planned hub, he noted.
“Having this presence really enables us to be just a permanent fixture in that location … a lot of capital in a very small area,” he said. “Again, that’s hard to replicate here in the Midwest, so many times, the reality is you’ve got to bring your technologies and talent to where the money is.”
He noted the Madison startup ecosystem has already been working to make connections in the Silicon Valley area. The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce’s Pressure Chamber contest has been bringing winners there to meet investors for more than a decade.
“This is just that on steroids … It really provides a nice center of gravity for us to showcase our technology and talent,” Keenan said.
Listen to the podcast below, sponsored by UW-Madison:
