The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime. That's a lot of time to spend in a bland, uninspired office.
But luckily for some Wisconsin workers, offices have come a long way since the days of boring cubicles and lukewarm coffee as companies put an increased focus on design and amenities for their employees.
To get a sense of some of the state's best tech offices, we asked our readers to submit spaces for Wisconsin Inno's first Office Envy series. The best of the best are below. Dive in to see some of Wisconsin's top tech offices, and if you know an office that should be included in an upcoming Office Envy feature, let us know.
Coming off a fresh $8.5 million fundraising round led by Revolution Ventures, Milwaukee startup Bright Cellars is currently renovating its office space in Ward4. The space features conference rooms that are themed after the startup's custom wine brands, along with a custom-built bar. Bright Cellars, founded in 2015, delivers wine to your door based on a machine-learning algorithm that picks brands you’re likely to enjoy. The startup went through the gener8tor accelerator program in 2015 and relocated to Milwaukee after finishing the program.
Headway, a Green Bay-based web design and development firm, has an open and modern office space, which is located at 520 N. Broadway. The company, founded in 2015, helps companies build software through business and product strategy, design and development. Its clients include the University of Illinois and Handshake, an employment startup for students backed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Madison-based ABODO's office features an industrial, modern design with views of the Capitol. Located at 316 W. Washington Ave., its employees have access to kombucha and nitro cold brew coffee on tap, ping pong, and plenty of snacks. The startup, founded in 2011, has built a hyper-local apartment search service that focuses on housing near college campuses. It has raised more than $10 million to date.
AkitaBox, founded in 2015, makes a cloud-based facility management software and data collection service that helps facility operators organize information about the buildings they manage. Based in downtown Madison at 212 E. Washington Ave., the startup has raised $1.2 million in funding.
Madison-based EatStreet, one of Wisconsin's most recognizable startups, features an open office with plenty of its familiar green. Located at 316 W. Washington Ave., EatStreet's online food delivery service serves over 250 cities, connecting customers to more than 15,000 restaurants. The startup has $45 million in funding, and its founders Matt Howard and Alex Wyler have been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Located just outside of Madison in Verona, Wisc., Epic's campus has been compared to the Willy Wonka factory full of "childish whimsy." Epic, a pioneer in electronic medical records and healthcare software, was founded in 1979 by Judy Faulkner and is one of the largest private technology companies, with $2.7 billion in annual revenue.
Northwestern Mutual's Cream City Labs
Launched in 2018, Northwestern Mutual's Cream City Labs is an innovation lab and workspace housed in the company's Milwaukee headquarters. The sleek, 17,000-square-foot space includes work stations, conference rooms, a kitchen and event space. Cream City Labs hosts hackathons, community meetups, STEM programming and other workshops to help support the local tech community.
Penrod, a bootstrapped startup specializing in CRM solutions on the Salesforce platform, features a sleek and fun office at 219 N. Milwaukee St. Penrod, founded in 2010, has become one of Milwaukee's fastest-growing startups, ranking No. 442 on the Inc. 5000 in 2017 and No. 480 in 2018.
