Foxconn (a supplier of Apple), Northwestern Mutual (an insurance company), Advocate Aurora Health (healthcare provider), and Johnson Controls (building material provider) are joining hands to create an early-stage investment fund with an equal share of $25M and named it as a Wisconsin Valley Venture Fund.
The fund will support the startups focusing on innovations in technology, healthcare, financial services and manufacturing plants,” as per the press release and will provide the investment in between $250K to $5M.
Advocate Aurora Health, Johnson Controls and Northwestern Mutual do have their headquarters in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, whereas Foxconn is planning to build their plant in the Southeastern part of the state and will have its North American headquarters at Milwaukee.
VP, Investment, Robert Locke, and Johnson Controls, said: “It is very important to realize that a single company master all the technologies and industry domain.”
Though the investment fund has its headquarters in Wisconsin, it is going to invest in the business nationally and internationally. While asking how the fund is going to give an advantage to Wisconsin, when it is not specifically give funding to the startups in Wisconsin, the executive said that the fund is a representation of the strength of business environment of the region and is the talent pool.
As per Foxconn, the company is investing $10B to make the factory, which creates 13K job opportunities. The company stated that majorly the factory would be the manufacturer of LCD display, though when asked recently the company has not confirmed about it.
The next step that the newly founded investment fund company will make is to hire a fund manager. Executives from all the partner companies stated that they are expecting to hire the person as soon as possible, however, not shared a scheduled date for it.
The company has open gates for a lot of business and job opportunity for Wisconsin.