Paragraph Venture Studio

Paragraph Venture Studio is a venture studio at 648 N. Madison Street, Suite 102, in the Trades District. It builds and backs software companies: it puts in product design and development, go-to-market work and early capital. Its site says it invests at the pre-seed and seed stages in business-to-business software that helps people work together, and in companies valued under $2 million.

Brad Wisler, Michelle Cole and Mike Trotzke founded it. Wisler and Trotzke have been business partners for nearly 30 years and started the venture studio SproutBox in 2008; Cole was chief operating officer of Envisage Technologies. Inside Indiana Business reported the studio’s aim as building and backing 15 to 20 software startups over five years. Its first fund is called Volume One.

The studio lists eight companies on its portfolio page, among them Bereave (software that helps employers support employees through grief), Bloom Spatial (vegetation management for electric co-ops), The Drill, Motion Sports, Periodic, Runrealistic, Tellstone and Viable. Founders and businesses can share their story through the “Submit your paragraph” form on its website.

Paragraph works in the restored Kiln building next to The Mill, a former Showers lumber-drying kiln that is also home to Soma’s Madison Street shop. Find it on the 3D map.