The Winnow Fund

Ricardo Pascual serves as Managing Director and is the sole publicly named decision-maker at the firm. He launched the fund while completing his law degree at the University of Wisconsin and operates as both general partner and primary investment committee member. No other investment professionals are disclosed in public records.

The Winnow Fund is an independent venture capital firm, not a university entity. However, its investment mandate requires that portfolio companies have a material connection to the University of Wisconsin system — typically a founder who attended or worked at a UW campus, or technology licensed from the university. The fund raised capital from the state-backed Badger Fund of Funds alongside private LPs, but operates independently of UW's technology-transfer office.

The firm targets initial checks of approximately $250,000 into seed-stage companies, per its own public communications. Fund I's $10.5 million was allocated across roughly 20 investments, implying average initial deployment in that range, with reserves held for follow-on participation in subsequent rounds.

Geography is dictated by university affiliation, not state borders. While most portfolio companies are based in Madison or Milwaukee, the fund has backed UW alumni-founded startups elsewhere in the Midwest. The binding condition is the UW connection, not physical location of the company's headquarters.

Ricardo Pascual has referenced a target Fund II raise in public appearances, but no final close or regulatory filing had been confirmed as of early 2026. Fund I deployment was completed in 2023, placing the firm in a typical fundraising window for a successor vehicle.

Deal flow is concentrated around the University of Wisconsin ecosystem — through campus pitch competitions, faculty referrals, UW–Madison's D2P (Discovery to Product) program, and alumni networks. The firm's co-hosted events, including the Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium's university track, function as structured sourcing channels alongside informal campus relationships.

Fund I's $10.5 million came from approximately two dozen limited partners, per the firm's own disclosures. The anchor commitment came from the Badger Fund of Funds — a state-chartered fund-of-funds program capitalized by Wisconsin's Small Business Credit Initiative allocation — supplemented by individual University of Wisconsin alumni and regional family offices.