Growing Chicago startup opens product development office in Milwaukee

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InContext Solutions

A screen capture from InContext Solutions, a Chicago startup that lets retailers reconfigure and test out store displays in a virtual environment.

Alison Bauter

Reporter- Milwaukee Business Journal

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If you have the right network, there's technical talent to be found in Milwaukee, and Chicago virtual reality startup InContext Solutions is locating here to capitalize on it.

The company's new product development offices in Milwaukee's 3rd Ward come as competition between Chicagoland startups and tech firms heats up, and because chief technology officer Tracey Wiedmeyer sees potential to the north.

Milwaukee is "just sort of on the cusp of seeing the growth and the entrepreneurial community thrive," said Wiedmeyer, a Hartford native.

Wiedmeyer wants InContext to be part of building Milwaukee's tech and startup scene. His perspective is balanced between work consulting in the Milwaukee area and a decade building a startup in Chicago. His take occasionally reinforces but often counters the prevailing narrative that Milwaukee is a bad place to build a tech company or hire developers and other talent, a reputation I explore in detail in Friday's print edition of the Milwaukee Business Journal.

To make hires, Wiedmeyer leveraged existing networks to starting building InContext's four to six-person Milwaukee product development team.

The company creates cloud software-based video games for large brands and retailers, including big names such as Coca Cola Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Family Dollar Stores Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., Kellogg Co. — you get the idea. InContext's videos allow retailers to virtually rearrange in-store displays and presentations, then have customers test out the new designs by walking through the video game environment. There are examples on its site, here.

InContext has raised multiple rounds of venture capital funding in Chicago, where it employs about 65. It has additional offices in Minneapolis, London, New York City and, now, Milwaukee.

Reporter Alison Bauter covers small business, technology, education and banking for the Milwaukee Business Journal.