To attract the best investors and employees, startup founders once
had to move to the coasts. But now they’re turning around and
going back home. Are smaller cities becoming the place to grow big?
by Maggie Ginsberg photographs by Amy Lombardn
obody really wanted to fund us,” recalls Alex Kubicek, a soft-spoken
Midwesterner with a shrewd scientific mind.
He’s thinking back to 2013. He was 25 and had already banked dual
degrees in physics and electrical engineering from the University of
Wisconsin–Whitewater, as well as a master’s in atmospheric science from
top-tier UW–Madison. Then he’d created a hyperlocal weather observa-
tion company called Understory and landed it in the first-ever cohort of
an accelerator in his hometown of Madison, which in turn sent him off on
nearly a year’s worth of pitching to Wisconsin-based investors. But nobody put in money.
Was his company the problem...or was it the stock of local investors? He decided it was the lat-
ter, and moved to Boston—where his fortunes changed. A local hardware venture firm called Bolt
invested first. San Francisco’s True Ventures went on to lead a $1.9 million seed round. Understory
was on its way.
But back home in Wisconsin, something was changing. That Madison-based accelerator,
Gener8tor, helped launch another 42 startups in the region while Kubicek was gone. After a ton of
work by a group of local entrepreneurs called StartingBlock Madison, American Family Insurance
helped open a $55 million, nine-story building, with space set aside for entrepreneurial groups.
Other venture capitalists started popping up around town, including Greg Robinson, a Bay Area
investor who launched a Madison-based firm called 4490 Ventures. Then Robinson got the idea to
lure one of Madison’s homegrown startups back to town.
He asked Kubicek if he’d ever move Understory back to Madison. And Kubicek was intrigued. HeThe Great
(REVERSE)
Migration
38 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / September 2019