Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation (NYSE: ROK) declined two takeover offers made by Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR) in the past three months, including one in October that valued Rockwell at more than $27 billion, CNBC reported. Rockwell develops software and provides services for customers in a numbers of industries, including semiconductors and biotechnology. Emerson, based in the St. Louis area, has reportedly attempted to engage with Rockwell for years, but August was the first time it made a formal acquisition offer.

—In other Rockwell-related news, the company was one of five Milwaukee-area organizations that signed on to provide funding for a series of startup accelerator programs run by Wisconsin-based Gener8tor. The funding will cover all operating costs for gBETA, a free, seven-week training program for entrepreneurs, in Milwaukee over the next two years. The other supporters announced this week were Northwestern Mutual, Kohl’s (NYSE: KSS), Robert W. Baird & Co., and the Milwaukee Institute.

Sift Medical Data, a Milwaukee-based startup developing software that it says can help hospitals and other healthcare organizations reduce denials of medical claims they send to insurers, raised $665,000 from investors. Sift said it plans to use some of the proceeds from the seed funding round for research and development, and to expand its data science team. Sift’s founder and CEO is Justin Nicols, who was previously chief operating officer at Okanjo, a Milwaukee-based adtech company. Read the full story here.