MON AM News: Seven startups go head-to-head in Green Bay pitch contest with $1M on the line; AG Kaul joining suit over NIH grants

April 7, 2025

— Seven entrepreneurs went head-to-head during a recent Green Bay pitch competition in hopes of landing a $1 million investment from TitletownTech.

The venture capital firm, an effort of the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft, last week held its Startup Draft Combine to showcase the startups hand-picked to participate in the national competition.

Company leaders pitched their innovations on Thursday, and the winner will be announced April 24 ahead of the NFL Draft, also happening in Green Bay this year. The winner will be invited on stage to be part of the NFL Draft broadcast that weekend, organizers said.

TitletownTech Managing Director Craig Dickman says the competition offers a chance to highlight Green Bay on the national stage.

“What we want to show you is innovation,” he said before last week’s pitches. “What we want to show you is amazing founders solving really important problems that matter to the world.”

Rajan Kumar, founder and CEO of Indiana’s Ateios Systems, said his team is creating “the fastest, lowest cost and cleanest” manufacturing platform for building batteries. He argued the current approach to making batteries is too slow, expensive and environmentally harmful to meet future demand.

By slimming down production to a smaller operation, the company boasts a 50% cost reduction while improving energy density and cutting out toxic chemicals such as PFAS. It’s first targeting batteries for consumer electronics, which Kumar says will help the business “improve margins, improve yield, put us in a better position to tackle” the electric vehicle market.

Rachelle Turiello, co-founder and CEO of Virginia-based Avant Genomics, touted the company’s automated platform for preparing tests for blood-based cancer detection in a laboratory setting. It’s focused on the “large and growing” liquid biopsy market, which currently has no automated options for sample preparation, Turiello said.

“It is two times faster than the current alternative, and requires 98% fewer consumables,” she said. “But for our customers, the laboratories, what makes them excited is the 84% reduction in cost.”

Avant Genomics is currently raising a target $3 million in a seed funding round and aims to close by July.

Meanwhile, CubeNexus founder and CEO Steven Brandt said his company aims to “bring context to spatial data” to make it more comprehensible to AI systems. That includes readings from sensors used across various industries like aviation and energy, such as radio frequencies or laser measurements.

The co-founders, both U.S. Air Force veterans, saw the need for such technology while deployed in Europe and the Middle East, Brandt said last week.

“Can I just have a button to answer simple questions about where and when I can make a decision, should I send a team in here? Should I drop a weapon here? That is why we built CubeNexus,” he said. “And we realized as we explored the industry that the commercial sector faces this problem as well.”

CubeNexus is raising a $650,000 seed round with $400,00 already committed.

Anthony Molzahn, CEO of North Dakota-based devii, said the company’s technology helps software developers “write better code faster.” He noted the average smartphone app takes about 2,000 hours to develop, with about half of that time dedicated to virtual “piping” for data transmission.

“We have whittled that 1,000 hours down to a single click,” he said, adding “our technology is uniquely positioned to oversee and orchestrate entire data centers.”

Pat O’Donnell, CEO of Pennsylvania-based Shelfmark, said the company’s AI inspection system aims to help manufacturing businesses become more profitable and effective. He noted many of the middle-market companies the startup is targeting “can’t find labor to save their lives” while still manually inspecting all the products they make.

“These manufacturers want to automate,” he said. “They want to automate things like visual inspection, rote tasks that they don’t want people on their staff to be doing when they come in every day to the shop.”

SpaceRake, a Massachusetts company with a laser-based communication system, was represented by CEO Weston Marlow and Chief Product Officer Jordan Wachs. The startup’s technology has applications for satellites and drones, they explained, and is unaffected by radio jamming interference.

“The writing’s on the wall that highly connected, small and dynamic systems — whether they’re satellites, or they’re drones or robots, or they’re embedded in your car or they’re embedded in an industrial process somewhere, are going to change the way the world works in the near future,” Wachs said.

He referenced the impact of Ukraine’s drone fleet in the ongoing conflict with Russia, noting its drones are “more than twice as impactful” as the rest of its weapons combined, adding “this is just starting to scratch the surface.”

Finally, the leaders of a startup called Ubicept highlighted the company’s approach to advanced image data processing, which aims to improve camera performance even in poor lighting. The company has a presence in both Massachusetts and Madison, where several of its engineers are located.

Co-founder Tristan Swedish said AI has led to major improvements in image processing, but if it’s fed poor quality data, there’s only so much it can do.

“The key is not to improve your AI system to be able to handle poor-quality data, it’s actually to improve data at the source,” he said, adding “Ubicept unlocks the full potential of image sensors.”

See an earlier story on the competition and listen to a recent podcast with Dickman.

— Attorney General Josh Kaul announced he’s joining 15 other state AGs in suing the Trump administration for delaying and cancelling grant funding through the National Institutes of Health.

The Dem AG said the administration’s moves to cancel upcoming meetings for NIH grant application review and “indefinitely” withhold final decisions on previously approved applications are “sabotaging” public health and medical research.

As one example, the state DOJ release points to UW-Madison losing out on four grants for $25 million, affecting research into vaccines and other topics. The university gets more than $400 million per year from the federal agency.

“The administration must return to complying with the law so this work that’s critical to people’s health stops being improperly delayed,” Kaul said Friday in a statement.

The AGs argue in the lawsuit that NIH is failing to meet statutory obligations and violating regulations, and that the administration isn’t authorized to shut down congressionally appropriated funding. It was filed in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

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— Kaul has also joined a multistate lawsuit with 20 other attorneys general challenging Trump administration cuts to programs that support museums and libraries.

It seeks to stop Trump’s dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides grants to libraries and museums. The lawsuit also seeks to protect the Minority Business Development Agency, tasked with supporting minority-owned businesses, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which aids in resolving collective bargaining disputes.

The state of Rhode Island is leading the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court there.

Trump signed an executive order last month directing the agencies to reduce their operations to “the minimum presence and function required by law.” As a result, the Institute of Museum and Library Services has cut 85% of its staff. MBDA and FMCS cut their staff from 40 to five people and from roughly 200 to less than 15 people, respectively, according to the filing.

The lawsuit argues Trump can’t unilaterally override Congress’ power of the purse.

“Local libraries and small businesses are important parts of communities, no matter what the Trump administration seems to think,” Kaul said. “These cuts should be blocked so these agencies can return to providing the services they previously offered.”

In a statement to WisPolitics on potential cuts to museums, Department of Tourism spokesperson Craig Trost said the department is concerned, though it can’t speculate on the impact since IMLS funds don’t come through the agency.

“Wisconsin tourism is a $25 billion industry and museums play an important role in why travelers choose to make memories and spend their dollars in Wisconsin. We remain concerned about any funding reductions that could impact the visitor experience and the first-rate hospitality that makes traveling to Wisconsin so special,” Trost said.

See more on the lawsuit at WisPolitics.

— In the latest GOP radio address, Rep. Chanz Green emphasizes the need for population-based units for deer hunting in northern Wisconsin rather than a county-based model.

“By using population-based units, wildlife management can be more dynamic and responsive to actual data, rather than relying on broad generalizations based on county borders,” the Grand View Republican says. “This allows for more adaptive and scientifically grounded decisions, improving the long-term health of deer populations and their habitats.”

Green says deer populations vary significantly throughout the counties he represents, especially in larger areas like the Northern Forest Zone.

“The county model can sometimes lead to uneven hunting opportunities across different regions,” Green says. “A population-based model ensures that areas with high deer populations receive more focused attention while regions with fewer deer are not subjected to overly restrictive quotas or hunting pressure.”

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