Early-stage investment activity in Wisconsin last year is expected to exceed $482 million once the final count is complete, according to an expert with the Wisconsin Technology Council.
Speaking yesterday during a Tech Council event in Madison, Investor Networks Director Joe Kremer shared preliminary investment deal figures for 2023. In line with the national trend, in-state investment activity last year was lower than in the two previous years, but is likely to surpass the total for 2020 as the final deals are tallied, he said.
The Tech Council’s current estimate for last year is about $482 million, including 85 deals. But the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. in the coming months will be reporting more deals from last year that qualified for tax credits through the agency’s Qualified New Business Venture program, Kremer noted.
“This number is going to come up,” he said. “We’re probably going to get close but I don’t think we’re going to cross $500 million. But this number will definitely come up above 2020, where right now they’re kind of neck-and-neck.”
Wisconsin’s early-stage investment total for 2020 totaled nearly $484 million as the Tech Council identified 114 deals. But the dollar figure for 2021 skyrocketed to just under $869 million through 140 deals, according to the group’s latest Wisconsin Portfolio. By the following year, the total had dropped to $640 million while the number of deals fell to 107.
Kremer also expects the total number of 2023 deals to reach 100 once the full picture for the year comes into view, he said yesterday.
The spike in 2021 followed by a slide downward was mirrored in the national investment landscape, Kremer noted.
“A lot of the driver out of 2023 obviously is risk-free interest rates, if you really want to geek out on the finances around that,” he said. “Literally, it’s sort of like a sucking sound out of the early-stage market, because if you can get 7% for free with no risk, a lot of people are going to be doing that. So it was a national phenomenon, it wasn’t just Wisconsin.”
–By Alex Moe
