Thirty years ago, a smart young entrepreneur stood up in front of a group of investors at the first Madison Venture Fair to talk about a company that was selling molecular biological products, such as enzymes and nucleic acids, to researchers and laboratories. That company is now called Promega and the young ’trep was founder Bill Linton.
Along with 11 other companies, mostly in their early stages, Promega was one of the first presenters in a conference format that has endured in various forms since 1984. Known the past 10 years as the Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium, it was previously the Madison Venture Fair, the Wisconsin Venture Fair, the Wisconsin Venture Conference and the Wisconsin Life Sciences Venture Conference.
