Innovation & Job News

Esperion Therapeutics is adding staff, closing on a round of seed capital and prepping for an initial public offering of stock later this year.

The pharmaceutical firm's staff recently jumped to 13 people after making five hires over the last year. It also has a job opening for a senior director of clinical & PT staff. Helping make that expansion possible is the recent securing of $33 million in preferred stock financing. The seed capital round was led by Longitude Capital with Aisling Capital, Alta Partners, Domain Associates, Arboretum Ventures and Asset Management also participating.

Tim Mayleben, Esperion Therapeutics' CEO, declined to comment on the company's growth because it recently filed for an IPO. IPOs come with quiet periods where company representatives are not allowed to promote the upcoming IPO, often leading them to decline speaking about the company altogether to be safe.

Esperion Therapeutics has historically been an Ann Arbor-based company, scoring a $1.3 billion exit when Pfizer acquired it in 2004. Company founder Roger Newton reacquired the firm in 2008 and eventually moved to the Michigan Life Sciences Innovation Center in Plymouth, which is managed by Ann Arbor SPARK.

Esperion Therapeutic's most advanced product candidate, ETC-1002, is being developed for patients with hypercholesterolemia and other cardiometabolic risk factors. ETC-1002 is a small-molecule metabolic regulator of imbalances in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism and inflammation. It is being developed to address the underlying causes of metabolic diseases and reduce multiple risk factors associated with them.

Source: Tim Mayleben, CEO of Esperion Therapeutics
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Huron Valley Financial is opening a new office in Jackson, the latest move in the Ann Arbor-based company's continued expansion across Michigan.

The company specializes in originating residential mortgages. Its new office in Jackson will house two mortgage specialists and serve as the launchpad for the company's expansion into the Jackson market.

"It seemed like a logical move to us," says Casey Daniels, vice president of business development for Huron Valley Financial. "The right opportunity with the right people presented itself to us, the right people being most important. The market is secondary."

The 16-year-old firm has focused on the Ann Arbor market for most of its existence. It began expanding into other regional markets about two years ago. It now has six offices across southeast Michigan with the addition of the Jackson office. It is also looking at expanding into Lansing, Plymouth/Canton, Farmington Hills, Birmingham/Troy and Grand Rapids.

"We realized that if we're really going to grow we need to reach to some different retail markets," Daniels says.

The company now employs 70 people. It has hired 15 people over the last year. Daniels expects to keep that rate of growth going as the company continues to expand across Michigan.

Source: Casey Daniels, vice president of business development for Huron Valley Financial
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Venture Capital investment in Michigan is on the rise, bucking a national trend of shrinking VC investment, according to a new report from the Michigan Venture Capital Association.

The report shows Michigan venture capital firms invested $242 million in local start-ups in 2012, allowing the Great Lakes State to jump to from its rank of 25th to 15th in a national venture capital ranking.

"We have had growth with a lot of firms," says Carrie Jones, executive director of the Michigan Venture Capital Association. "We have had firms from out of state opening up offices here."

The number of venture capital professioals in Michigan has jumped by 53 to 62 over the last two years. In comparison, the pool of national venture capital professionals has shrunk from 6,328 in 2010 to 5,887 last year. Ann Arbor is arguably the de facto capital for local VCs because of its large concentration of venture capital firms that specializes in investing in spin-outs from the University of Michigan in the life sciences, bio-technology and technology sectors.

The total capital under management for Michigan has also spiked over the last two years, going from $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion. The average fund size has jumped by $3 million to $43 million.

"Michigan is a real bright spot for the whole industry," Jones says.

Source: Carrie Jones, executive director of the Michigan Venture Capital Association
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Current Motor Co's business plan has focused on expanding its sales of electric scooters into South America, where the vehicles are popular. That plan is starting to gain traction this summer with the beginning of the company's first fleet sales.

The Ann Arbor-based start-up manufactures an electric scooter that provides the same sort of mobility and capability as regular gas-powered scooters, but with a much smaller carbon footprint. Many of the two-stroke gas engines of the millions of scooters in South American countries like Brazil produce a lot of air pollution. That isn't an issue with Current Motor Co's electric scooters and solar-power charging stations.

"It's actually a very practical fleet addition," says Lauren Flanagan, executive chair & interim CEO of Current Motor Co. "It's very popular, particularly with mobile, solar-powered charging stations."

Flanagan says the company is in the midst of completing its first fleet sales in Brazil this spring and expects to complete more by the end of the year. It is also looking at making similar fleet sales in the U.S. as it attempts to hit the break-even point of selling 500 scooters within the next year.

"We have a very lean model so we think that is possible," Flanagan says.

Current Motor Co and its team of a dozen people closed on a Series A round of financing worth $2.4 million last year. Flanagan expects to begin fundraising for a Series B round worth somewhere between $5 million and $10 million early next year. The company is currently looking to hire a director of fleet sales and a couple of software engineers to develop mobile apps for its scooters.

Source: Lauren Flanagan, executive chair & interim CEO of Current Motor Co
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Venture Investors has a new investment fund, and the venture capital firm is aiming to spread some seed capital across Michigan this year.

Venture Investors' fourth fund was worth $118 million and made 18 investments, including in local companies like Incept BioSystems, HistoSonics, NanoBio and Tissue Regeneration Systems. The venture capital firm is currently fundraising for its fifth fund, which has already made three investments.

"We are currently working on a couple in Michigan," says Jim Adox, managing director of Venture Investors. "One will hopefully be within the next 60 days."

Venture Investors has offices in Madison, Wisc., and Ann Arbor. Adox overseas the Ann Arbor office, which also employs a full-time intern. He is also looking to add an executive in residence.

Venture Investors has traditionally made investments in university spinouts in the bio-technology and life sciences areas. Adox plans to expand that target area to include technology companies with this new fund.

"The investment potential and prospects for tech companies have improved in the last few years," Adox says.

Source: Jim Adox, managing director of Venture Investors
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Kentaro, formerly Kentaro Web Design + SEO, has traditionally made its way through its first few years providing web services to local real-estate agents. Now the Ann Arbor-based business is coming out with its own web platform to serve the same purpose.

Real Estate Espresso launched last month with a handful of local real-estate agents. The web platform serves as a lead-generation service for real-estate professionals by focusing on connecting home buyers and sellers with local agents.

"This product is a means to automate a majority of the real-estate process," says Kentaro Roy, founder & president of Kentaro.

The four-person firm hired a web developer about six months ago. It is currently working on perfecting Real Estate Espresso and developing a marketing plan for it.

"We have gotten really good results and feedback from the first agents," Roy says.

Source: Kentaro Roy, founder & president of Kentaro
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

A little more than a year ago, FlockTAG was a dream of a couple of entrepreneurs looking to reinvent customer-loyalty programs. Today it's a start-up with technology that can be found in numerous small businesses across most of Michigan's major cities.

The downtown Ann Arbor-based start-up raised $250,000 in angel funding last year to create a technology platform that works as a universal loyalty card for a broad range of retailers and other businesses. That technology is now being used at 100 retail businesses in Detroit, Novi, Ann Arbor, East Lansing, Bloomington (Indiana), Champaign (Illinois) and Columbus. It also has 100,000 card holders who have used them 1.2 million times.

"We learned you can never be customer-centric enough," says David Lin, CEO & co-founder of FlockTAG. "How can we provide better user experience? How can we provide more value?"

FlockTAG is looking to expand further throughout the Midwest later this year. It is now focusing on creating more customer engagement on how best to deliver customer data to businesses without overwhelming them with information. "It's really a careful balancing act," Lin says.

FlockTAG has expanded its staff to a dozen employees and two interns. It recently made four key hires of sales and technology professionals. The 1-year-old business is also working to raise a Series A round of funding worth $1.5 million. It's presenting at the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium next week to help hit that goal. Lin hopes to wrap up its Series A financing this summer.

Source: David Lin, CEO & co-founder of FlockTAG
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Commerce Guys is adding to its staff in America, hiring three people in the last year, adding another now, and is looking bring another three on soon.

The Ann Arbor-based tech firm employs 48 people, including 18 in the U.S. The 5-year-old e-commerce company merged with a French firm three years ago. Commerce Guys also has two interns in Ann Arbor, who are French students working in the U.S. It is also in the process of hiring for a new position with a candidate from MichiganWorks! and has three more job openings for software developers.

Commerce Guys is an e-commerce company that integrates Drupal, a popular open source content management system, with its customer's Internet sales platform. It is transitioning from a service-oriented firm to one that creates its own software platform thanks to a 30-percent jump in revenues. It is in the process of launching Commerce Mobile, a mobile app that brings the online shopping experience to consumers on any Apple mobile device.

"The real value we can add is based around a repeatable product we can sell," says Scott Dahlgren, managing director, North America, for Commerce Guys.

Commerce Guys is also working to make its Commerce Mobile platform customizable for its clients to help accelerate its adoption. "It really has the opportunity to grow adoption very rapidly," Dahlgren says. "It allows somebody to use it easily."

Source: Scott Dahlgren, managing director, North America for Commerce Guys
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Ann Arbor State Bank is growing on a number of different fronts, expanding its loan portfolio, adding to its staff and opening new offices.

The downtown Ann Arbor-based bank launched in 2009 and has grown to $187 million in assets with $153 million in deposits. It has grown its assets by $29 million in the last year, partly thanks to $20 million in new deposits over that same period.

"Our growth is easily filled with deposits," says Peter Schork, president & CEO of Ann Arbor State Bank. "We have no triggers to stop making loans besides loan demand."

Ann Arbor State Bank opened a mortgage office in downtown Ann Arbor last year, which now has a staff of 10 people. The bank also opened a loan office in Jackson with a staff of two people. Its commercial loans have grown from $83 million last year to $103 million today.

"We have done very well in terms of growth and loan portfolio," Schork says.

Ann Arbor State Bank has hired seven people in the last year. It now has a staff of 32 employees and the occasional intern.

Source: Peter Schork, president & CEO of Ann Arbor State Bank
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Dynamic Edge is growing its business thanks to its customers' ability to sleep.

The Ann Arbor-based IT firm's Fixed IT program specializes in providing a holistic and comprehensive solution for its customers. The idea is that Dynamic Edge's technology either comes in and takes care of IT problems before they crash a system or nips them in the bud before they even happen.

"It allows people to sleep better knowing their systems are always up," says Bruce McCully, CEO of Dynamic Edge. "We updated our ability to do that for them."

Sales of the the Fixed IT program have increased with existing customers, which has allowed the 14-year-old firm to add some additional clientele. Many of those customers are also looking for automated systems to help them deal with new healthcare and SEC regulations.

The jump in revenues from that work prompted the company to hire six people, such as systems administrators, in the last year, bringing its staff to 39 employees and an intern. It also has four IT positions open right now, and a spot for an intern.

Source: Bruce McCully, CEO of Dynamic Edge
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

HistoSonics is getting ready to start clinical trials later this year, which will mark the beginning of the last product development phase for the Ann Arbor-based start-up.

The 3.5-year-old firm, a spin-off from the University of Michigan, is developing a medical device that uses tightly focused ultrasound pulses to treat prostate disease in a non-invasive manner with robotic precision. The company's name, HistoSonics, is a combination of histo (meaning tissue) and sonics (meaning sound waves).

HistoSonics recently finished its regulatory approval process and institutional board of review approval. It is now prepping to begin its first clinical study, which will take up to one year to complete.

"I expect we will have this done in the next month or so," says Christine Gibbons, president & COO of HistoSonics. She adds that the main clinical study after that will take two to three years to complete.

The company is currently looking to add two clinical research managers to its team of 10 employees and one intern. Making that possible is the $11 million in venture capital HistoSonices scored in 2009. It is in the process of raising a Series B round of seed capital. Gibbons hopes to land between $12 million and $15 million in the Series B.

Source: Christine Gibbons, president & COO of HistoSonics
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Cliché tells us that sunlight is one of the best weapons to make something better. One Ann Arbor-based start-up is turning those words of wisdom into a business.

DavaRay is developing a proprietary heat dissipation technology that uses light to stimulate the healing process. The technology uses a monochromatic LED ray to help soothe chronic pain. DavaRay claims that its Nanobeam 940 is used by a number of professional sports teams, including the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Pistons.

"It's really getting a lot of attention in the sports industry," says David Arndt, co-founder of DavaRay.

Arndt was inspired to start the business after suffering through chronic neck pain from a motorcycle accident. He found some relief in infrared therapy but the company that made the technology went out of the business, so the mechanical engineer decided to make his own product.

The 6-year-old company now employs seven people and a couple dozen independent contractors. It is currently working to raise seed capital so it can ramp up production and marketing. The company will present at next week's Michigan Growth Capital Symposium.

"We have gone from one guy with a sore neck from a motorcycle accident to treating thousands of patients with chronic pain," Arndt says. "We're taking it to the next level."

Source: David Arndt, co-founder of DavaRay
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Last year, LLamasoft scored $6 million in venture capital. Since then it has hired 60 people as it scales its logistical software products. This year the downtown Ann Arbor-based company is going to be all about consolidating those gains and focusing on maximizing profitability.

The 11-year-old company has grown its revenues by 70 percent over the last year and expects to do that again in 2013. All of that new business is coming from customers in a wide variety of industries, stretching from oil & gas to life sciences. LLamasoft's biggest customers are in the food & beverage and consumer goods industries.

"We're doing well across every industry," says Toby Brzoznowski, co-founder & executive vice president of LLamasoft.

LLamasoft now employs 150 people after hiring 60 in the last year. About 70 percent of those 150 are in its recently expanded downtown Ann Arbor office. The company now has offices in the United Kingdom, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Brzoznowski expects his staff to grow another 20 percent over the next year.

He chalks the slower growth in hiring up to the company's focus on maximizing profitability this year instead of revenue gains. The company is also getting set to release a number of new software products, including some that migrate more of the logistical work to the cloud and mobile platforms.

Source: Toby Brzoznowski, co-founder & executive vice president of LLamasoft
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Arbor Brewing Co spent much of 2012 setting the stage for some significant growth both at home and abroad. This is the year the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti-based craft brewery begins to reap some of those gains.

The Ann Arbor-based company completed a $1 million eco-friendly expansion to its sister brewery, Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti, last year. That gave the firm the room to double its capacity. Last year it sold 3,500 barrels of beer and is on pace to sell 5,000 barrels this year. Next year's target is 7,000 barrels.

Helping drive that growing demand is sales of its new award-winning IPA (Buzz Saw American IPA) and its takeoff of its strawberry blonde beer, Bollywood Blonde. Arbor Brewing Co is also doing a quarterly release of its Imperial Series, which includes a double IPA and an imperial pilsner. The brewery is also increasing production of its four-packs of barrel-aged sour beers.

"Some of our brands are really starting to take off," says Rene Greff, who co-founded Arbor Brewing Co with her husband, Matt Greff, in 1995.

Arbor Brewing Co's new India franchise is also gaining traction. The firm recently decided to open a franchise in Bangalore to fill the void in the practically non-existent craft brewing scene in India. After a year of trying to get the brewery off the ground, it is now up and running and gaining speed.

"It's doing fantastic," Matt Greff says. "We started serving beers in February and it's blowing away our expectations of sales and beers sold. It's absolutely nuts."

Arbor Brewing Co currently employs about 50 people in India and expects to begin searching for an American master brewer to work there full-time later this year. It is also exploring the idea of expanding to a few more locations in India in the next few years.

The company has a staff of 70 full-time employees and two interns between its downtown Ann Arbor brewpub and the Corner Brewery. It has hired five people between those two breweries over the last year, both for its kitchens and the breweries.

Source: Matt & Rene Greff, co-owners of Arbor Brewing Co and Corner Brewery
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Apparently slow and steady does win the race, even for tech firms that make race car simulation software.

Image Space has made its mark as a video game development firm since 1992. Its principal product is the rFactor and rFactor2 systems, which allow users to build their own four-wheel vehicle and use it in a racing simulator. Slowly and steadily improving those platforms has allowed the downtown Ann Arbor-based company to continue its relentless growth in recent years.

"Our growth will be slow and steady," says Gjon Camaj, vice president of Image Space. "We only bring people in as we need them. Our growth has always been slow and steady."

Image Space now employs a staff of 20 people, a dozen of which work in downtown Ann Arbor. The rest work remotely. The firm hired one engineer six months ago and is in the process of hiring another engineer right now.

That expanding team will help to continue to grow the rFactor platforms, including its new rFactor Pro. Its new products are being used both by professional racing teams and by companies looking to provide a realistic game-playing experience.

"We have sold that to a number of racing organizations, including a number of Formula 1 teams,"  Camaj says. "We have also used that software in other ways and sold it to marketing companies."

Source: Gjon Camaj, vice president of Image Space
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.