Venture North

Venture North is not a single VC firm—it's an annual conference and broader ecosystem initiative organized by NVNG Investment Advisors, a Madison-based investment advisory firm that has quietly become one of Wisconsin's most influential venture capital allocators. Through its Fund I, a $50 million fund-of-funds vehicle, and a parallel $12 million direct investment vehicle called the Wisconsin Investment Fund, NVNG has built a structured way to get Wisconsin companies in front of national venture capital. Understanding NRR and why top quartile exceeds 120% is valuable for any founder.

The +Venture North conference, which NVNG launched in 2023, has quickly become the marquee event connecting Upper Midwest founders with corporate investors, out-of-market VCs, and each other. Held annually in Milwaukee, the conference reflects NVNG's thesis that Wisconsin's startup ecosystem needs both capital and network access to grow.

This guide explains what Venture North really is, how NVNG's fund-of-funds model works, which portfolio companies have emerged from this ecosystem, and practical steps for founders who want to engage. Whether you're a Madison-based biotech startup or a Milwaukee B2B SaaS company looking for your first institutional check, understanding NVNG's approach is essential.

Unlike a traditional VC that writes checks from its own fund, NVNG operates as an allocator—selecting external venture managers and co-investing directly in Wisconsin startups alongside those managers. This positions them uniquely as both a capital source and a convener for the broader Wisconsin venture community.

The +Venture North conference was conceived because Wisconsin founders were getting locked out of national venture flows. The state's startup ecosystem, while producing serious technical talent, lacked the deal flow visibility that Silicon Valley or Chicago enjoyed. NVNG's answer was to bring the investors to Wisconsin. Understanding SaaS unit economics and LTV:CAC is valuable for any founder.

The inaugural +Venture North conference drew corporate development teams, institutional VCs from coast-to-coast, and Wisconsin founders into the same room in Milwaukee. The goal wasn't just networking—it was structured deal flow where Wisconsin companies could present directly to investors who might otherwise never discover them.

By 2025, +Venture North had expanded to include sector-specific programming, panels on capital-raising mechanics, and curated one-on-one meetings between founders and fund managers. The conference has become a forcing function for Wisconsin's venture infrastructure: companies that present there get seen, and investors who attend get exposed to deal flow they wouldn't find elsewhere.

The broader "Venture North" brand has also come to represent the connective tissue of the Wisconsin venture ecosystem—the network of LPs, portfolio managers, and founders that NVNG has assembled through its funds.

NVNG Investment Advisors manages Fund I, a $50 million fund-of-funds that deploys capital into external venture managers rather than making direct investments from the fund itself. This structure gives Wisconsin LPs—corporations, family offices, and financial institutions—access to top-tier national venture returns without needing to underwrite individual startup bets. Understanding healthcare financial benchmarks is valuable for any founder.

The LP roster for Fund I reads like a Wisconsin corporate directory: West Bend Insurance, Johnson Financial Group, Baird, Exact Sciences, MKE Tech, CU Ventures, Hydrite Chemical, and A.O. Smith are all named as investor members. This corporate diversity reflects NVNG's thesis that corporate investors bring more than capital—they bring potential partnership, customer relationships, and acquisition optionality for portfolio companies.

Alongside Fund I, NVNG operates a $12 million direct investment vehicle called the Wisconsin Investment Fund, which makes co-investments in Wisconsin startups alongside the venture funds in NVNG's portfolio. This direct capability is critical because it lets NVNG put capital to work in the state without waiting for an external fund to lead a round.

The dual structure means NVNG can be helpful at multiple stages: pointing founders toward relevant external managers in their portfolio, and writing their own check when the situation warrants. For founders, this means NVNG can serve as both a warm introduction to other VCs and a potential lead investor in their own right.

NVNG also maintains +Venture Wisconsin, an online directory of Wisconsin startups designed to increase visibility of the state's companies to national investors. This platform functions as a pipeline tool and an evergreen resource for anyone tracking the Wisconsin ecosystem.

Through its Wisconsin Investment Fund, NVNG has begun announcing direct investments in Wisconsin startups. The most prominent publicly disclosed holding is Immuto Scientific, a Madison-based platform biotech leveraging structural proteomics and AI-enabled computational modeling to design targeted cancer therapies and other disease treatments.

Immuto Scientific, led by Faraz A. Choudhury, Ph.D., represents the kind of company NVNG gravitates toward: deep technical science with a clear therapeutic focus, operating in a sector where Wisconsin has institutional strength through institutions like the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Beyond Immuto, NVNG's fund-of-funds structure means its capital flows through external venture managers who make direct investments in Wisconsin companies. The aggregate portfolio across NVNG's fund-of-funds portfolio companies spans B2B SaaS, healthcare IT, manufacturing technology, and food and agriculture technology—the sectors NVNG has identified as Wisconsin's comparative advantages.

The Wisconsin Investment Fund has indicated it will invest in approximately a dozen Wisconsin companies over its deployment period, making it a meaningful but concentrated participant in the state's early-stage ecosystem. Each investment typically ranges from $250,000 to $1 million, positioning NVNG as a co-investor rather than a lead at the seed stage.

NVNG has deliberately focused its ecosystem on sectors where Wisconsin has demonstrable industrial and academic advantages. The state's healthcare and life sciences infrastructure—including major health systems, a strong university research apparatus, and existing medical device companies—makes it a natural fit for biotech and health IT investments.

Food and agriculture technology is another explicit priority, reflecting Wisconsin's $100 billion agricultural economy. The state's position as a top dairy and crop producer creates real market problems that technology can address, from supply chain optimization to sustainable farming practices.

Manufacturing technology rounds out the core focus. Wisconsin's manufacturing base—historically strong in machinery, industrial equipment, and precision components—has created a talent pool and customer base for industrial software, automation, and advanced manufacturing startups.

B2B SaaS is treated as a horizontal layer that intersects all three sectors: any of these vertical industries generating software needs that can be served by well-built cloud tools. NVNG's thesis is that Wisconsin founders solving domain problems in these three sectors have natural go-to-market advantages and lower customer acquisition costs compared to founders building vertically-agnostic software.

The most direct path to NVNG's attention is through the +Venture North conference or its sister event, +Venture Health. Both events include structured opportunities for founders to present to attending investors. Getting a speaking slot at one of these conferences puts a founder directly in front of the LP and VC network NVNG has assembled.

Founders without a conference angle can use +Venture Wisconsin, NVNG's online startup directory, to build a profile and get visibility in the database that national investors use to source Wisconsin deals. Keeping this profile current with funding status, key hires, and metrics ensures it's useful when investors are doing Wisconsin diligence.

Warm introductions remain the most effective channel for securing a meeting with NVNG directly. The firm's team is small and actively engaged with the Wisconsin ecosystem—they're accessible to founders who come through trusted referral. Building relationships with Wisconsin angel investors, economic development organizations, and university technology transfer offices is a legitimate path to that referral.

Cold outreach to NVNG should be concise and focused on three things: what you're building, why you're building it in Wisconsin, and what you've accomplished. NVNG is interested in founders who have a clear reason for being in the Upper Midwest—whether that's industry expertise, customer access, or talent availability—rather than founders treating Wisconsin as a low-cost alternative to a coastal market.

For founders seeking investment from the broader NVNG network rather than directly from the Wisconsin Investment Fund, the conversation shifts to understanding which external funds in NVNG's portfolio are most relevant to their sector and stage. NVNG can facilitate those introductions, but the founder needs to articulate why the fit makes sense.

Wisconsin has historically lagged peer Midwest metros in venture capital deployment—a 2023 analysis showed Milwaukee significantly trailing cities of similar size in VC-backed startup activity. NVNG's emergence as a structured allocator and ecosystem convenor is a direct response to that gap.

The state has compensating strengths that are increasingly attracting attention: lower cost structures than coastal markets, deep manufacturing and agricultural infrastructure, and a cluster of corporate LPs interested in technology innovation. The combination of these factors creates a specific kind of opportunity for startups that can leverage Wisconsin's advantages.

Wisconsin's university system—particularly UW-Madison, but also Marquette, Milwaukee School of Engineering, and others—produces technical talent that historically has left the state for opportunities elsewhere. NVNG's thesis is that better access to capital and network can retain more of that talent, creating a self-reinforcing ecosystem where startups attract graduates who previously would have left.

The NVNG model reflects a broader shift in how Midwest venture infrastructure is being built: not by trying to replicate Silicon Valley, but by identifying the sectors where the region has genuine advantages and building investment vehicles that connect those strengths to national capital markets.

For direct investments from the Wisconsin Investment Fund, NVNG looks for founders who can clearly articulate what Wisconsin provides them that they couldn't get elsewhere. This might be a relationship with a specific potential customer, access to manufacturing infrastructure, or domain expertise rooted in local industry experience.

Stage-wise, the Wisconsin Investment Fund is most active at the seed and pre-seed levels, often co-investing with angel investors or micro-VCs who lead rounds. The typical check range of $250,000 to $1 million means NVNG is rarely leading a round but frequently providing meaningful follow-on capital to strengthen the cap table.

Management team quality matters significantly in a smaller ecosystem where reference checks are easy and reputation is well-known. NVNG's local presence means they can validate founder claims quickly and have strong views on team composition before making an investment decision.

Traction metrics matter, but NVNG's team is known for being realistic about what early-stage metrics look like in Wisconsin's B2B and deep tech companies. A founder who can show solid customer development, even if revenues are early, will typically fare better than one relying on aggressive top-line projections without customer validation.

NVNG expects founders to have a clear-eyed view of their SaaS unit economics and runway, even at early stages. For Wisconsin startups where customer acquisition cycles can be longer than in consumer software, understanding your burn rate and path to breakeven is essential—not as a projection to defend to investors, but as operational management information.

Working with a fractional CFO who understands the venture-backed model is particularly valuable for Wisconsin founders who may be building their first financial infrastructure. The ability to produce investor-ready financial models, clean cap tables, and realistic 12-month projections significantly accelerates NVNG's diligence process.

Our team has worked with Wisconsin early-stage companies on exactly this: building the financial infrastructure that makes fundraising conversations productive rather than speculative. Founders who can walk into an NVNG meeting with clean financials and a clear use-of-funds articulation are meaningfully more credible.

For companies that have already raised angel capital, ensuring your cap table is clean and你的 cap table is clean and your historical financing documents are organized will avoid costly delays during due diligence. Wisconsin deals often involve local angels with varying levels of sophistication in deal documentation.

Whether you're preparing to engage NVNG directly or building a fundraising strategy that leverages the Wisconsin venture ecosystem, professional financial infrastructure sets you apart. Our team has helped early-stage Wisconsin companies build the financial models, dashboards, and investor materials that make fundraising conversations productive.

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