WI Syndication Group Seeks More Investor Team-ups to Spur Big Exits
Summary
Wisconsin—which has a small local pool of venture capital and aspirations to churn out more high-growth startups—is one of the places experimenting with tactics to nurture relationships and collaboration between investors in the state.Capital Midwest general partner Dan Einhorn says the deal was sparked by a conversation at a meeting of the Wisconsin Investment Syndication Committee.The committee is an informal group Einhorn formed more than two years ago to try and coax more meaningful conversations—and more deal-making—between Wisconsin’s growing number of venture capital firms, corporate VC arms, angel investors, and other startup backers in their networks, some of whom are located outside the state.He thinks getting investors to sit down together and talk about interesting companies on their radar is a better way to encourage co-investing than typical methods, such as hallway conversations at business conferences or calling up venture firms out of the blue.Einhorn says he saw an opportunity to encourage them to more actively build relationships, understand peers’ strategies, share contacts from their networks, help each other vet deals, and team up on investments.