By Tom Still
MADISON, Wis. – If there’s a common trait among effective entrepreneurs, it’s their tendency to follow unique paths to success.
One Wisconsin example made news this week when Mirus Bio, one of the first biotechnology companies to get traction in Madison, was sold for $600 million to Merck KGaA, a global science and technology firm based in Germany. Mirus was born of a talented local team of business and science experts – without relying on venture capital to fuel its growth.
Specializing in making reagents for cell and gene therapy, Mirus was profitable from its birth about 30 years ago. It sold once before to Roche in 2008 but the founders bought back a portion a few months later. The part kept by Roche became Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, another successful Madison biotech firm. There was another partial Mirus sale in 2021 and the remainder will now become part of Merck.
The early Mirus story involved not just one founder but four, business leaders Terry Sivesind and Ralph Kauten, and scientists Jon Wolff and Jim Hagstrom from the UW-Madison.
Illustrative of how startup companies evolve over time and enrich the very business soil from which they rose, the Mirus story is timely for another reason: It make the point that different founders can and often do follow different paths to success.
Two more prominent Wisconsin examples will speak June 6 in Milwaukee at the annual Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference, which exists to highlight best practices and to give startup leaders the kind of information and contacts they need to break through.
Maneesh Arora is a serial entrepreneur whose company, Elephas, works to visualize how cancer cells respond to possible treatments – an approach that can help patients faster and more effectively. Elephas has raised $116 million in venture capital thus far and which recently partnered with the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Like the leadership team at Mirus, Arora has deep Madison roots. He was previously chief operating officer at Exact Sciences Corp. for 10 years, where he helped lead the growth of the company from three people to more than 3,000 employees. Before joining Exact in its earliest days, Arora worked for Third Wave Technologies Inc., a molecular diagnostics firm in Madison, from 2003 until it was acquired by Hologic Inc. in July 2008. Prior to starting Elephas in 2020, Maneesh was CEO of Farcast Biosciences, a venture-backed cancer diagnostics firm focused on improving treatment outcomes for cancer patients.
Unlike the Mirus story, however, Arora has followed a financing strategy that he believes will lead to faster results in the cancer-fighting world … pursuit of venture capital to ramp the best ideas quickly. He will speak the morning of June 6.
Another indigenous but distinct story is embodied in Valerie Daniels-Carter, whose financial model for success was built around the time-honored technique of franchising.
Raised in Milwaukee, Daniels-Carter epitomizes bootstrapping. V&J Foods Inc. was founded in 1982 by her and John Daniels Jr., launching operations in 1984 with a single Burger King restaurant and growing into 38 stores – 12 of which are in greater Milwaukee and 26 in metropolitan Detroit, Mich.
Related firms V&J National Enterprises LLC and V&J United Enterprises LLC are Pizza Hut franchisees, founded in 1997 and 1999, respectively. They operate in Syracuse, Rochester and Albany, N.Y., and western Massachusetts, where they collectively operate 64 restaurants and four non-traditional sites.
With all restaurants combined, V&J is one of the largest restaurant franchisers in the country.
Because she is known for her business acumen across industry lines, Daniels-Carter is a member of multiple civic, corporate and non-profit boards, as well as being a board member of the Green Bay Packers and a minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. She will speak the afternoon of June 6 as the latest recipient of the Ken Hendricks Memorial “Seize the Day” award for entrepreneurial excellence.
Successful entrepreneurs come in all flavors. Those who are embarking on their own journeys today can learn by getting a taste of how others did it.
Still is president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. He can be reached at news@wisconsintechnologycouncil.com.
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