Madison Entrepreneurs & Civic Leaders Team Up To Create Starting Block

Madison, Wisconsin has a budding entrepreneurial and startup community. Last year, on our sneaker-strapped startup road trip, we had an impromptu trip to Madison, and they assembled about 40 startup founders in less than 3 hours to meet with us. The following day we toured their startup ecosystem, and we were quite impressed.

While the startup ecosystem in Madison continued to grow, they lacked an epicenter like Chicago’s 1871 or DC’s 1776.

Well, a few weeks ago, Madison Alderman, entrepreneur, and founder Scott Resnick told us they were working on something big and now that has become a reality.

A group of Madison entrepreneurs and civic leaders announce the formation of StartingBlock Madison and the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the property owner to explore development of the Kleuter Building (former Mautz Paint building) into an entrepreneur center. StartingBlock Madison has solicited requests for proposal for development from leading development companies and anticipates selecting a development partner later this summer.

StartingBlock Madison’s goal is to create a centralized location for the Madison region’s entrepreneurial activities.  The facility will provide Madison-based startups with affordable, flexible office and co-work space, accelerator support, peer and mentoring resources, education and training, and community building activities.

StartingBlock Madison’s facility will provide:
• a permanent home for Sector67, Madison’s successful makerspace/prototyping center for next-generation manufacturing technologies
• a location for gener8tor, a startup accelerator that provides expertise, mentorship, and capital through a 12-week intensive curriculum
• subsidized office space with short-term leases and flexibility for young startups
• quality at-market office space for high growth companies
• a healthcare IT incubator to support the growing number of healthcare IT startups
• space for other entrepreneurial resources, such as funders, investors, law firms, and other professional service providers
• community and auditorium space for Capital Entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurial activities and events.

“gener8tor is thrilled about the possibility of harnessing the cumulative brainpower, innovation, and array of resources from across the Madison entrepreneurial ecosystem into one unified, community hub. We anticipate the synergies and random connections that will be created by StartingBlock will lead to exponential benefits for Madison and the surrounding region,” gener8tor co-founder Troy Vosseller told Nibletz via email.

Resnick says that they hope to open the doors on the new Starting Block next fall.

Image: Kleuter Building