BrightStar announces new investments and D2P grant

BrightStar announces new investments and D2P grant

BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation Inc. today announced that it has invested a total of $1 million in five additional companies, Dairyvative Technologies LLC, Shine Medical Technologies Inc., Fetch Rewards Inc., Medical Companion LLC (doing business as mPirik), and Keystone Insights Inc. (doing business as Project Foundry).

It brings the total investments made in 2014 to just more than $2 million in 14 companies throughout the state. Fundraising for the second half of 2014 totaled $1.85 million, bringing the total of donations to the foundation to $7.85 million since receipt of its nonprofit determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service 13 months ago.

“We were able to nicely match our inflows from donations this year to our investment outflows into early stage companies,” said BrightStar portfolio manager Todd Sobotka. “We have more than $2 million in cash on hand. Our next investment committee meeting will be Jan. 20 and we hope to screen three more companies.”

Investment committee member Pam Evason, CFA, managing director, Windermere Wealth Advisors, added, “These companies were quite varied when it comes to valuation, stage of development and type of technology. One common theme, though, is that they all look like job creators.”

BrightStar also announced that it has presented University of Wisconsin-Madison Discovery to Products (D2P) director John Biondi with a check totaling $30,000 from its first pass-through grants earmarked by Brightstar donors. The D2P organization promotes entrepreneurship within the UW community and assists UW-related startups in beginning the commercialization process.

BrightStar is a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation created to facilitate job creation and increase Wisconsin’s economic activity by deploying donated funds into equity stakes in early-stage, rapid growth companies. This new approach will enable the formation of new investment capital in Wisconsin through charitable donations to the foundation.