Milwaukee startups receive funding to commercialize their technology

By Nick Williams – Reporter, Milwaukee Business Journal Four Milwaukee-area startups are receiving some extra cash from government and academic funding programs to help commercialize their technology. AquaMetals, based in the Milwaukee County Research Park’s Technology Innovation Center in Wauwatosa, is getting up to $75,000 in Small Business Innovation Research grant funding to commercialize its technology, which develops analytical measurement systems for the monitoring of dissolved toxic heavy metals in industrial wastewater. Pewaukee-based V-Glass, which is developing affordable vacuum-insulated window glass to curb heat loss, is also receiving up to $75,000 in SBIR grants, according to Wisconsin’s Center for Technology Commercialization. Meanwhile, Shockray Self-Defense, an Oak Creek startup that developed a combination of a pepper spray pistol and electrical stun gun weapon, and Ictect, a Brookfield tech company that offers software and services to automate the management and sharing of documents, are getting up to $50,000 each from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Ideadvance Seed Fund. Both AquaMetals and Shock Defense were among 12 finalists in the 2018 Governor’s Business Plan Contest. You can watch a video of AquaMetals and Shock Defense founders pitching their products below. V-Glass was a BPC finalist in 2013. Read the original article from the Milwaukee Business Journal here.