One of the newest venture capital funds formed under Wisconsin’s Badger Fund of Funds recently closed on financing for its first offering round.
Milwaukee-based Bold Coast Capital, founded and led by Ross Leinweber, has secured just over $6 million from 12 investors. The industry-agnostic fund has an initial total offering amount of $15 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Leinweber previously said he was looking to raise between $10 million and $12 million for investment deals in young companies in Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago and the Fox Valley.
“We are encouraged by the support from investors both locally and around the country,” said Leinweber, who worked in trading for several years. “Our investors keep telling us that Wisconsin is poised to emerge in 2020. Madison has the ingredients in place for it to be a top-tier entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Fox Valley has always been ripe with engineering ingenuity and the city of Milwaukee is a sleeping giant. The innovation investments being laid in the academic halls and throughout the corporate campuses in southeastern Wisconsin will serve as core building blocks for the next decade.”
In 2013, the state of Wisconsin provided $25 million to establish the Badger Fund of Funds, which raised an additional $5 million from the private sector and agreed to create six to eight venture capital firms across the state. Running the program is Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Sun Mountain Capital, which specializes in regional investment programs, and Kegonsa Capital Partners.
The Badger Fund of Funds supplies a certain percentage of capital into the new funds and the rest of the money is raised from private investors. Other Badger recipient funds include the Idea Fund of La Crosse, the Winnebago Seed Fund and the Rock River Capital Fund.
