from the investment-tracking firms PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association. The Badger State’s down year ran counter to the national trend in venture investing; in 2017, U.S. startups raised $84.2 billion, the highest year on record since the early 2000s.
—Beginning later this year, one of Madison’s busiest north-south thoroughfares, Park Street, will serve as a test bed for autonomous vehicle technology, the University of Wisconsin-Madison said. Researchers at the school have teamed up with traffic engineers employed by the city to establish a 6.2-mile corridor extending southward from the university campus, where they’ll program stoplights to exchange information with one another and change modes when certain circumstances arise. For example, if an ambulance is rushing a patient to one of the hospitals located along the north end of Park Street, “traffic signals could work together to clear traffic” for the ambulance, the university said.
—Wauwatosa-based TAI Diagnostics, which is seeking to commercialize a non-invasive test to monitor the health of organ transplant recipients, announced a partnership with United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:UTHR]]). The Silver Spring, MD-based company was also an investor in TAI’s recently closed $10 million Series A funding round, the company said. Frank Langely, TAI’s CEO, said late last year that his company’s plan is to begin selling the test in the first half of 2018.
