MKEStartup.News took a snapshot of the top founders and funders in the Milwaukee startup ecosystem. Using PitchBook, we examined the venture capital deals in the region from January 1, 2019, through January 13, 2022, looking exclusively at data from companies that are headquartered in the Greater Milwaukee area.
In that time, Milwaukee companies were involved in 191 deals from 24 investors with a total of $250.87 million invested into these scalable, high growth startups.
Most successful fund raisers
Following is a list of the 15 top fund raisers in the metro area. This fundraising total is over the life of the company, according to Pitchbook.
The single largest raise during that time was Forj’s $15 million Series A funding round.
| Company Name | Total Raised (in millions) |
| Promentis Pharmaceuticals | $40.35 |
| Cmxtwenty | $39.34 |
| Penrod | $25 |
| Frontdesk | $23.8 |
| Forj | $21 |
| InControl Medical | $19 |
| Bright Cellars | $17.97 |
| Synthetaic | $17.5 |
| Sift Healthcare | $16.04 |
| Fiveable | $13.64 |
| ConsortiEx | $11.58 |
| Aquarius Technologies | $11.5 |
| GenoPalate | $10.5 |
| Legacy Platforms | $10 |
Most active investors
Following is a list of the top 15 investors who have made the greatest number of investments into businesses that are headquartered in the Milwaukee region between January 2019 through January 13, 2023, according to Pitchbook.
| Investor | Number of Investments |
| gener8tor | 9 |
| Right Side Capital Management | 8 |
| Cream City Ventures | 7 |
| UWM Research Foundation | 6 |
| BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation | 5 |
| Ideadvance | 5 |
| National Science Foundation | 5 |
| Rock River Capital Partners | 5 |
| CSA Partners | 4 |
| Gateway Capital Partners (Milwaukee) | 4 |
| Plug and Play Tech Center | 4 |
| Project Pitch It | 4 |
| Sachse Family Fund | 4 |
| Winnebago Seed Fund | 4 |