This article is part of a new series profiling University of Wisconsin alumni contributing to Wisconsin’s growing innovation economy.
Since Wisconsin Inno’s last discussion with Markable founder Joy Tang, the startup has grown rapidly and is approaching the close of a $6 million Series A round.
Aside from creating an AI-enabled visual searching platform that is revolutionizing the e-commerce experience, Madison-based Markable is also a pioneer in assembling a truly diverse team, with members from all genders and places of origin. Add in a female CEO, and Markable is clearly shaking up the traditional tech startup culture and structure.
One such team member is Alex Suprise, a UW grad and Markable’s in-house strategic counsel. Her path to the Wisconsin startup scene and entrepreneurship was serendipitous, having started her career majoring in Journalism and Classics, then heading to law school. Not content with a more traditional career in law, Suprise sought out other opportunities.
First, she performed legal compliance for high-profile Wisconsin political campaigns, expanding her network. She eventually met Troy Vosseller, co-founder of local accelerator gener8tor and fellow lawyer, who told her about ways her skills might be helpful to emerging companies.
Suprise read about Markable in the news and was impressed by the product and leadership. Markable’s work is the “future of advertising,” says Suprise. Instead of keyword searching with traditional search engines, people will perform image-based searching. She offers a simple scenario to support her claim – “imagine watching Netflix, wondering what an actress is wearing, and having the ability to perform a simple visual search to locate and purchase that product.”
In her role at Markable, Suprise oversees contracts, offers and NDAs. Though she pursued a nontraditional route, Suprise has found that much of her past training is relevant in the innovation arena. She uncovered an unexpected overlap between campaign work and her experience as on a startup team.
Both involve fundraising, a lot of energy, working on teams and staying focused on a large, common goal. Since Markable is a venture-backed company, Suprise has also learned more about the venture capital industry. She applied for and received a coveted Fellowship with Bascom Ventures, where her legal background provides value to the team as they perform due diligence on potential investment opportunities.
Markable will soon be expanding their team to include more engineers and technical support specialists to provide the needed client support to maintain growth. As legal counsel, Suprise will be integral to that growth, employing her strong attention to detail and writing skills to work on client and strategic partnership agreements that will come as the company continues to scale.
About the Author: Andy is a 5th-year MD/PhD Candidate at the Medical College of Wisconsin with interests in medicine, biomedical research, the humanities, and innovation. He is also a member of the Golden Angels Advisors, MCW’s Postdoc Industry Consulting Organization, and a Community Engagement Fellow at Bascom Ventures.
