Madison is making the transition from “fly-over” to “fly-into,” but it still has a ways to go, according to a panel at the Badger Startup Summit held Wednesday at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

“I think Madison has all the right ingredients to be a great startup community, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” Luke Bonney of Redox said. “At least we’re heading in the right direction.”

Bonney, a former Epic employee, referenced organizations such as 100state that have helped to foster innovation in the city.

Another organization, gener8tor, has been helping to grow the startup ecosystem through its accelerator program in Madison and Milwaukee.

“Madison is far and beyond anywhere else in the state … and even other Big Ten cities,” gener8tor Co-Founder Troy Vosseler said. “Per capita, Madison is punching above its weight class, even compared to Chicago.”

However, to transition the Midwest into a “fly-into” region, Chicago should be the hub, and Madison and Milwaukee should be the spokes, Vosseler said.

John Philosophos, general partner of Great Oak Ventures, travels throughout the country and mentioned that he’s “encouraged by the progress we’ve made in this ecosystem, but we have a long ways to go.”

“We’ll never be Silicon Valley,” Philosphos said, “but we can be Boulder or Austin.”