Advocate Aurora Health, Foxconn, Johnson Controls, and Northwestern Mutual selected Jason Franklin, Ph.D. to lead the $100m Wisconn Valley Venture Fund.
The early-stage venture capital fund is designed to invest both nationally and globally, targeting transformative and interdisciplinary innovations in health care, technology, manufacturing and financial services.
Dr. Franklin, who will be based in Milwaukee and San Francisco, will lead all aspects of the fund, including investment origination, evaluation, closing and ongoing portfolio company support.
Dr. Franklin is a computer scientist and deep-tech entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. Following his career as a research scientist and visiting lecturer in the computer science department at Stanford University, he was a partner on the investment team at Andreessen Horowitz, a Venture Partner at Avalon Ventures and an Investment Fellow at Innovation Endeavors.
Previously, Dr. Franklin co-founded and served as CEO of Stamp Labs, a mobile security startup founded with two Stanford professors.
He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University and his bachelor’s degree, conferred with top honors with a double major in computer science and mathematics and a minor in business, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Each fund partner has committed $25 million to the Wisconn Valley Venture Fund and has representation on the fund’s investment committee.
FinSMEs
13/03/2019