It’s not just the NFL’s 32 GMs who have big decisions to make in Green Bay this week.

Before NFL commissioner Roger Goodell steps up to announce the No. 1 overall pick Thursday night in Wisconsin, Packers-backed venture capital firm TitletownTech will make its selection in a first-of-its-kind draft of business startups.

TitletownTech will broadcast the decision online, with the winning company expected to appear on the NFL’s draft stage later this weekend. The process highlights funding sources available beyond traditional financial centers—and also sheds light on why a professional football franchise would fund a VC outfit in the first place. 

In many ways, TitletownTech’s process mirrors the evaluations being done across the street in the Packers front office. Following the startup draft’s announcement, close to 1,000 young companies declared themselves interested. Seven were then selected to attend a startup combine in Green Bay earlier this month. They connected with business leaders and other potential partners, but also detailed their pitch for the $1 million prize. They even ran a 40-yard dash. 

TitletownTech’s portfolio spans five verticals—agriculture, water and energy; manufacturing and construction; supply chain and logistics; digital health; and sports, media and entertainment—and its list of combine invitees made clear that the decision makers were after a difference maker. They do have the first (and only) pick, after all. Better to swing big. Combine participants included experts in battery manufacturing, cancer detection, laser-based communication and machine vision.

While numerous sports-related startups applied, none made the cut. “You’ve got to deal with the draft class as it is,” TitletownTech managing director Craig Dickman said. TitletownTech wouldn’t be caught reaching for a prospect who might fit a need. 

Dickman added that artificial intelligence advances have changed the way TitletownTech evaluates startups, which carried over to the draft process. 

“Things that would have been rational [businesses] 18 months ago, you look at now and say … ‘AI can do that,’” he said. “So now 1,000 people can do that—it’s not just this company.”

Over the selection process, a war room developed. Floor-to-ceiling whiteboards accrued scrawled information across three walls. TitletownTech brass spent the final days leading up to Thursday doing traditional due diligence before the final announcement. They also rented a local home for the winning startup to occupy in advance of their NFL stage debut Saturday. 

Along the way, TitletownTech has received support from Microsoft, which helped launch the venture in 2017. Microsoft and the Packers each seeded TitletownTech with $5 million investments; an initial goal was advancing economic development in the area. But the fund’s size—it now has nearly $100 million in assets under management—and ambition have only grown since. Now it has a national stage, and a message to share. 

“The nation’s eyes are going to be on this small town—can we capture that with something that goes into our worlds of innovation and tech?” said Mike Egan, Microsoft general manager, U.S. philanthropies. “Something for us to always think about is, you have so much venture [funding] on the coast… How do you drive some of that inward?”

Just as the Packers have proven you can win NFL championships in middle America, TitletownTech has helped to prove that you can build massively impactful companies there, too. While the startup draft winner won’t have to relocate to Lambeau like Green Bay’s NFL draft picks do, a half-dozen existing portfolio companies have opted to do so. And as for the startups who don’t get picked on Thursday?

“Well, you know,” Dickman said, “there’s always the potential of a compensatory pick.”