Abele a big booster of area’s start-ups
Businesses pack his Ward4 hub
Already well known in southeast Wisconsin as Milwaukee County executive and a local philanthropist, Chris Abele has in recent years taken on another role: He is one of the biggest supporters of the region’s growing startup community.
And although he won’t say exactly what he has planned next in his role as a booster of entrepreneurship, he’s hinting that he’s going to take the next big step soon. First, some background: Evidence of Abele’s interest in entrepreneurship began to emerge after he was elected to public office in 2011. He held briefings with local start-up leaders, toured the “1871” center
where start-ups share working space in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, and formed an economic development office.
Then Abele stepped it up in May 2013 when he launched a venture capital fund, CSA Partners, saying at the time that he would invest “at least $10 million.” To date, the fund has put more than $12 million in 14 companies, including six based in Wisconsin, Abele said in an interview.
Then in June 2015, Abele opened Ward4, a start-up hub on the edge of downtown Milwaukee just east of the main U.S. Post Office. The 38,000-squarefoot co-working space, which spans the entire second floor of the Pritzlaff building complex, houses 40-plus businesses that employ more than 160 workers, said Kenzi Enright, Ward4’s community curator.
“Ward4 has become place for entrepreneurs to gather,” said Matt Cordio, co-founder of Startup Milwaukee, which provides networking and other support for young companies. “It has hosted so many valuable events for the community, whether it’s hack-a-thons, meetups or educational programs for entrepreneurs.”
Now, with all of Ward4’s offices filled and only individual desk memberships available, Abele says he’s thinking about opening the next Ward4.
“I’ve had some interesting discussions with (Marquette University president) Mike Lovell about some ideas that I’ll just say are in development about a mutually beneficial collaboration,” Abele said.
Abele has serious money to put into the entrepreneurial infrastructure.
His father was a cofounder of medical device maker Boston Scientific, and his family’s Argosy Foundation had assets of about $13 million at the end of 2014, according to its most recent available tax filing.
This isn’t charity; Abele says he’s looking to make a profit.
“But the vast majority of what I’m going to do with it is invest in more local companies, and you know, if I make more, I’ve got more to give away,” Abele said.
Profit isn’t Abele’s only motive. He is enthusiastic about helping to build enterprises and a “can-do” spirit in his adopted city.
“I like walking in (to Ward4) and being surrounded by people who have big ideas and are pursuing them,” said Abele, who grew up in Massachusetts but came to Wisconsin to attend Lawrence University. “What all these people have in common is they have big goals; they want to disrupt in a positive way whatever system they’re in — and they’re relentlessly exploring and pushing the edges of finding new ways to do it.”
Abele constantly reaffirms to those around him that he wants to continue investing in the region, said Joe Kirgues, co-founder of gener8tor, a startup accelerator and training program that is among CSA Partners’ investments.
“What inspires us is that Chris wants to play to win,” Kirgues said. “And he wants this community to be recognized on a national stage.”
Not only does Abele want to help local startups grow; he also wants to import them.
Take, for example, Bright Cellars Inc., a hightech monthly wine club.
In November 2014, Bright Cellars co-founder Richard Yau made his first trip to Milwaukee to talk with Abele and other local start-up leaders about bringing his young, three-employee company here from Boston for gener8tor’s 12-week training program. The more they talked, the more interested Yau says he became in a permanent move.
Abele told Yau about the plans for Ward4 and for a new Milwaukee Bucks arena. To Yau, Milwaukee seemed like an earlier version of more mature technology markets like California, where he’d grown up, or Boston, where he’d gotten a business degree at MIT and begun his career.
“I thought, ‘This is something that’s actually happening now,’ ” Yau said.
A little more than two years later, Bright Cellars has grown to 25 employees and has moved into a bigger office suite in Ward4. Yau credits Abele for not only planting the idea of Bright Cellars’ moving here, but helping to guide his business as it grows.
“This would not be your first guess for a place where an algorithmdriven, wine-subscription company would start up, but he’s been able to help us with that — and help connect us to all the businesses and community here,” Yau said.
Abele says he’s driven by his enjoyment of the process of helping companies grow and by having an impact on the community.
To be sure, there are challenges here, like unemployment, graduation rates and racial disparities, that shouldn’t be ignored, he said. But a robust entrepreneurial culture, in his opinion, helps to address even those sorts of problems.
“I love this place, and I’ve always had big ideas of just how far I thought Milwaukee can go,” Abele said. “At a minimum, I bet we can make it better. At a maximum, I bet we can knock it out of the park.”