2025 Healthcare Innovation Pitch: The Year of Bridging Wisconsin & Michigan’s Healthcare Ecosystems
This past June, the Healthcare Innovation Pitch initiative hosted its annual kickoff event inside Entrepreneur Alley at Summerfest Tech AI. As 2025 comes to a close, the program has successfully expanded from a local pitch tradition in Southeast Wisconsin into a Great Lakes regional ecosystem for healthcare and healthtech founders, investors, and supporters.
Entrepreneur Alley was added to Summerfest Tech AI in 2025 to serve as a founder-focused platform, peer-to-peer learning environment, and an opportunity for ecosystem builders to collaborate with the conference to bridge gaps between existing efforts in the region. This intention for collaboration was music to the ears of longtime ecosystem builder Dan Sem.
In 2015, Dan launched the Healthcare Innovation Pitch initiative (HIP), an annual bootcamp series and pitch competition in partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and its AMPD program. Coming into this year, HIP had already been a steady engine for Southeast Wisconsin’s healthcare and healthtech pipeline, built on more than a decade of work building the connective tissue inside the region’s healthcare innovation ecosystem. Following the 2024 addition of a HIP chapter in Michigan, Entrepreneur Alley offered the perfect platform to kick off the year’s efforts to bridge the gap between the two state’s healthcare innovation ecosystems.
Kickoff at Summerfest Tech: A New Starting Line
The HIP Kickoff Event at Entrepreneur Alley featured panels on founder journeys, investor perspectives, and regional healthcare manufacturing trends. 2023 SFT pitch alum Nick Myers (RedFox AI) spoke on his story to acquisition, while the investor panel brought Michigan-based Renaissance Ventures across the lake to share insights on backing Midwest startups.
Southeast Wisconsin Pitch: The Milwaukee Tradition Continues
October’s pitch event in Milwaukee featured eight companies. Confidence Medical won the healthcare track, while Tip-a-ScRxipt (2022 SFT pitch alum) captured the healthtech win. Their victories underscored HIP’s role as both an early proving ground and a repeat launchpad for product changes or market pivots.
Michigan Pitch: A Second State Builds Momentum
Following its inaugural year in 2024, Michigan’s second annual HIP event brought nine companies to the pitch stage at TechTown Detroit. Top honors in the healthcare track went to Diapin Therapeutics, and Ollivate took home the healthtech win. Michigan’s second year of the competition showcased ecosystem relationships that Dan Sem has built as Executive Director of the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Walsh College.
Great Lakes Pitch: A Cross-State Stage Emerges
HIP’s 2025 season closed with the inaugural Great Lakes Healthcare Innovation Pitch at StartingBlock in Madison, where Wisconsin and Michigan winners faced off alongside additional contenders in the region. Soul Mobility claimed the healthcare track, while Ollivate secured the healthtech title for a second time, highlighting the company's strong cross-state support and momentum.
An Ecosystem of Access, Support & Funding
Between the three pitch events, 20 VC funds and angel groups were involved in evaluating pitches and selecting winners. More than 20 different resource-providing organizations and businesses provided bootcamps, mentorship, legal guidance, pitch coaching, and exposure to commercialization pathways throughout the 2025 HIP season. These partners ranged from university innovation centers to healthcare systems, startup accelerators, law firms, and statewide life-science organizations. Together, these capital and resource partners ensured that all participating founders gained access to technical resources, regulatory guidance, and capital connectivity needed to catalyze their innovations.
A Midwest Platform, Built Together
With four events spanning three cities and two states, 2025 marked the first year HIP operated as a true regional circuit. The initiative showcased what cross-geo ecosystem development can look like when various partners and builders align their strengths.
Call to Action
Founders and ecosystem builders: Entrepreneur Alley is now accepting submissions for sessions and events at Summerfest Tech AI this June. If you’re building a niche ecosystem and/or bridging ecosystems together, consider Entrepreneur Alley as your platform for amplifying that mission, showcasing your collaborations, and leveling up your impact on the Midwest startup ecosystem.