Innovation & Job News

Stout Systems prides itself on being a picky employer. The Ann Arbor-based staffing firm bills the technical talent it places in jobs as having survived a tough screening process.

"We won't send a candidate out on an interview who hasn't gone through that screening process," says John Stout, CEO of Stout Systems. "We are pretty quality driven from that standpoint."

That sort of reputation has allowed Stout Systems to grow both its core staff and the number of people it's putting into IT and software jobs. The 20-year-old company has helped fill 40 positions in other companies over the last year and added five people to its own core staff, which stands at 12.

Driving that hiring spree is growth in its revenue, which is up 10 percent over the last year. Stout says that made 2012 his company's best growth year ever. Increased demand from manufacturing and engineering firms made that possible.

"We have seen a lot of demand for those sectors," Stout says.

Source: John Stout, CEO of Stout Systems
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Arbormoon Software recently expanded its office space in downtown Ann Arbor, not to house more room for its software workers but to create a community space for the technical circles they run in.

The Ann Arbor chapter of CocoaHeads (Apple software programer group) now uses it for its monthly meeting. The 800 square feet of space also hosts meetings for community groups in the data management and Java Script areas.

"We think supporting events is important to us," says Dave Koziol, president of Arbormoon Software. "That's where we find new talent. That's where we learn as a company and gather new information."

The 10-year-old software firm has been pushing aggressively into the mobile world in recent years. It has hired four people in the last year (most of which are mobile programers) to keep up with its growth in that space. It now has a staff of a dozen employees and is looking to add a summer intern or two.

"We're seeing lots of growth in Android," Koziol says. "We have brought on two people for Andriod development in the last two months."

Source: Dave Koziol, president of Arbormoon Software
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

The last 12 months have been more than a little eventful for Epsilon Imaging.

The Ann Arbor-based start-up launched its principal product called Stress Echo, an ultrasound for cardiac imaging that quantitatively measures the strength and weakness of the heart's muscles. It now has 12 installations of this technology in hospitals across the country and is looking to ramp up that number even more.

Epsilon Imaging is also gearing up to launch its second product later this month, a cardio oncology application. The technology allows doctors to see if cancer medications are negatively impacting the heart early in the process.

"The people who undergo treatment, some will have their heart come under attack from the medication," says Eric Sieczka, president of Epsilon Imaging. "The problem is you won't notice that until 8-9 months later."

The firm has hired two people over the last year, expanding its staff to 12. Its two recent hires include a director of sales and a software developer. Sieczka also expects to begin fundraising for a Series B round of seed capital worth approximately $5 million, which would double its Series A funding from a few years ago.

"This has been a pretty exciting year for us," Sieczka says.

Source: Eric Sieczka, president of Epsilon Imaging
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Carcode.me is one of those start-ups that hits its stride after it has evolved a little.

The Ann Arbor-based start-up that calls the Tech Brewery home cut its teeth providing QR code technology to automotive dealerships. The idea was that providing QR codes would allow shoppers to access key info about the vehicles on the lot, such as make and model, while the dealership was closed.

"We found that the sales staff was using it to pull up information get it to the customer," says Nick Gorton, co-founder & CEO of Carcode.me.

"We realized our target market wasn't the customer but the sales people who can use it as a tool," says Steve Schwartz, co-founder & CTO of Carcode.me.

The 2-year-old start-up now has its technology in 150 automotive dealerships across 13 states, which pay for it on the software as a service model. That growth has allowed the company to add one new team member (a software developer), expanding its team to three people. The company is also looking at raising a seed capital round to fund a marketing campaign later this year.

Source: Steve Schwartz, co-founder & CTO of Carcode.me and Nick Gorton, co-founder & CEO of Carcode.me
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

SimuQuest is looking to become more of a product company instead of a software firm.

The Ann Arbor-based software firm develops mathematical models for software creation. These tools enable a shift from manual coding to the automatic generation of software from mathematical algorithms. The company's special sauce lies in providing the final step to enable generation of fully integrated software, making the solution a viable reality for its clients.

"It's powerful in the sense of understanding a system and debugging it," says John Mills, president & CEO of SimuQuest.

SimuQuest currently has three product lines that deal with data management. It has worked on major enhancements on two of them. Parts of those products help users visualize their data and how it can best be harnessed.

"The management of data has become really horrendous and a huge headache," Mills says.

That has added up to SimuQuest's revenue going up slightly over the last year. It has also hired one more person, expanding its staff to seven employees. Mills says those hiring numbers could have been higher.

"We would have aded more people if we could find the people we need," Mills says. "It's very, very hard to find (software) developers today."

Source: John Mills, president & CEO of SimuQuest
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Enlighten is increasingly becoming more about the software products it puts out than the services it has rendered for the last three decades.

The Ann Arbor-based firm has traditionally focused on digital marketing services. That focus is starting to shift. Last year Enlighten released two photo-oriented software products last year, WhatWasThere.com and YearlyMe.com. This year it plans to release a coupon and marketing software program called OffersNow that's aimed at helping small businesses.

WhatWasThere.com is a mobile app that allows users to upload historic photos of everyday places. The idea is to help show how communities and places evolve over time. YearlyMe.com works in a similar function. Instead of buildings, the users upload pictures of themselves through the years so they can show off their own evolution.

"It's really fun to see people over time," says Steve Glauberman, CEO of Enlighten. "We have had 50 people in the agency do it. You can see that you were a nerd in 1985 and in 1986 and in 1987."

OffersNow will be a subscription-based software service that lets small businesses (think mom-and-pop restaurants) create and manage coupons. The subscription fee pays for an online marketing push to help get out the word about the deals and build that business' online brand. Glauberman says a few local chambers of commerce are interested in it and Enlighten plans to launch a Beta test for 100-150 local businesses in May.

"We think that is going to be a really successful product," Glauberman says.

Enlighten has enjoyed its own overall success over the last year. Its revenue is up 10 percent and the company has hired nine people, expanding its staff to about 100 employees and a few interns. It also has a couple of job openings right now.

Source: Steve Glauberman, CEO of Enlighten
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Lyons Consulting Group plans to invest $1.1 million in its Ann Arbor office and hire 30 new people after securing $300,000 in incentives made possible by the Michigan Economic Development Authority and Ann Arbor SPARK.

The Chicago-based firm bills itself as a "digital agency specializing in strategy, ux/design, development, and ongoing support." It opened an office in Ann Arbor last May to take advantage of the area's deep talent pool in e-commerce expertise.

"When you find a patch of good people you capitalize on it," says Norman Alesi, COO & CFO of Lyons Consulting Group. "It's difficult to find a group of people who understand e-commerce the way these people did."

The Ann Arbor office currently stands at 13 people and is growing. Lyons Consulting Group currently has four job openings for a project manager, sales representative, experience architects, and a support and maintenance position.

Alesi and Lyons Consulting Group's founder Richard Lyons are both Metro Detroit natives. Lyons also graduated from the University of Michigan. But Alesi maintains that while those roots helped sway them, their ultimate decision was based on the quality of the people they could hire in Ann Arbor.

"It is predominantly because of the talent base," Alesi says.

Source: Norman Alesi, COO & CFO of Lyons Consulting Group
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Clarity Quest Marketing is a company that is enjoying both the rise in the economy and the uptick of its age.

The Ann Arbor-based firm doubled its revenue in 2012, allowing it to hire two more people in the last six months. It now has a staff of 13 employees and an intern. One of its recent hires was also a former intern.

"It was a great growth year for us," says Christine Slocumb, president of Clarity Quest Marketing. "We're getting a lot bigger clients. Once you hit that 10-year mark people start to think, 'OK, you're legitimate.'"

Clarity Quest Marketing has brought on a number of new clients in the healthcare and IT sectors, including Vocollect Health Systems. The Pittsburgh-based business is the maker of AccuNurse, which provides voice enabled point-of-care solutions to the long term care market.

"They are doing some great work with voice recognition," Slocumb says.

Among Clarity Quest Marketing's other new clients are QTS and SVS Safety in Mt. Clemens, which makes safety equipment. "We do a lot of their online marketing," Slocumb says.

Clarity Quest Marketing expects to keep growing its revenue in 2013, but more in the 20 percent range. "I see it as more of a normal year for us," Slocumb says.

Source: Christine Slocumb, president of Clarity Quest Marketing
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

PWB Marketing Communications has not only seen its client base in Michigan grow over the last year, it's also expanding its geographic reach.

The Ann Arbor-based marketing agency has recently added to its customer list a software firm based in Montreal called MAYA. The two share a business relationship with a third company and started to do some work together over the last year.

PWB Marketing Communications, which recently turned 30, has also seen some of its long-term clients, particularly those in the manufacturing, technology, outdoor enthusiast, and financial service sectors, come back for more and steadier engagements with the rise of the economy.

"We have definitely seen some good things in the marketplace," says Sean Hickey, COO of PWB Marketing Communications. "There is good work out there to chase."

The firm now has a staff of six people after adding new social media and SEO specialists. Hickey says the recent economic downturn has made firms like his a little gun shy about pulling the trigger on new hires, but he doesn't expect that to last too much longer.

"We are on the cusp of adding staff," Hickey says. "We want to be careful about adding staff at the right time."

Source: Sean Hickey, COO of PWB Marketing Communications
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

What started as a freshman-level engineering project meant to help make the world a better place has become a socially entrepreneurial start-up that aims to do just that.

Centri Cycle is creating a cost-effective and easy-to-use centrifuge that can be used to perform simple medical tests in the Third World. The idea is to make this self-powered technology available in places like India to help combat preventable suffering and death from disease.

"We took the idea and ran with it," says Carolyn Yarina, CEO of Centri Cycle.

Yarina and her co-founder (both University of Michigan students) have gotten the technology to the prototype phase where it is being tested at the University of Michigan Hospital. The TechArb-based start-up hopes to bring its technology to market in the U.S. next year and to India by fall of 2014.

"It should be ready for market in March or April," Yarina says.

Source: Carolyn Yarina, CEO of Centri Cycle
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Omar Hashwi has always thought public performance and music platforms like Youtube were difficult to use and unfriendly to small bands and DJs looking to break out. That's when the University of Michigan student decided to build a better music platform, Stamp.fm.

"We want to make sure every artist can be heard," says Omar Hashwi, founder & president of Stamp.fm. Hashwi is also a local DJ and vice president of the student body at the University of Michigan. "We want this to be a well-known platform where people go to discover new music and artists go to kickstart their careers."

The 5-month-old start-up provides a platform for what it calls online music tournaments. Every couple of weeks, Stamp.fm asks artists to audition in places with dynamic music scenes, like Ann Arbor and Detroit. The auditioning acts then square off in a battle-of-the-bands-like contest where a champion of that city's music scene is announced.

The Ann Arbor-based start-up and its team of a few dozen contributors has already held one of these competitions in Ann Arbor and is looking to expand into other nearby markets, such as Detroit and Chicago.

Source: Omar Hashwi, founder & president of Stamp.fm
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

DeepField is planting its flag on West Liberty in downtown Ann Arbor, claiming new office space where it can call the likes of Menlo Innovations, Barracuda Networks, and Google as neighbors.

"It's an incredible pool of talent and energy," says Craig Labovitz, CEO & co-founder of DeepField. "It's incredibly close to the university and the growing pool of tech talent."

The 1-year-old start-up got its start in the Tech Brewery on Ann Arbor's north side. That is where the company has done much of the work to develop software that enables large corporations to adapt to the ever changing world of the Internet's back-end IT infrastructure. It raised $1.6 million in venture capital last year to develop its technology.

DeepField's technology is now deployed in some large companies (Labovitz declined to name which ones) in North America, Europe and South America. "We're seeing a large part of the consumer Internet traffic in the United States," Labovitz says. Naim Falandino, chief data scientist for DeepField, adds, "We are in all segments of the market now."

DeepField recently hired two people, bringing its staff to nearly 15. The growing staff meant it had to sign a two-year lease for a new office space downtown to make room for the new hires. DeepField currently has five job openings and expects to make another 10 hires later this year.

Source: Craig Labovitz, CEO & co-founder of DeepField and Naim Falandino, chief data scientist for DeepField
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

AlertWatch has set some high hopes for its first round of venture capital. The Ann Arbor-based start-up has raised $1 million in seed capital and plans to formally close on its Series A round in 2014.

The 1-year-old star-up is a University of Michigan spinout and calls the Venture Accelerator at the university's North Campus Research Complex home. Its first year has focused on pushing forward the development of its patient-monitoring technology and turning its team of three people's work into full-time jobs.

"A lot of it was just the blocking and tackling of getting a company off the ground," says Justin Adams, CEO of AlertWatch.

AlertWatch's technology is a secondary patient monitor for hospital operating rooms. It aggregates data from multiple networks and hospital IT systems and displays them at a central location. It is currently being used in three pilot projects. Adams hopes to have its intensive care unit product ready for commercialization and to be piloting an emergency room product by early 2014.

"We'd like to be in five hospitals and have a term sheet for a Series A round," Adams says.

Source: Justin Adams, CEO of AlertWatch
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Terumo Cardiovascular Systems continues to expand as a rapid pace, growing its Ann Arbor-based workforce to 600 people after making 150 new hires in the last two years.

The company currently has 30 open positions in a variety of white-collar work areas.

"These are all-across-the-board jobs," says Barbara Schmid, director of corporate communications at Terumo Cardiovascular Systems. "They are in professional, medical and administrative fields. A majority of them are in engineering."

Terumo Cardiovascular Systems is a subsidiary of Japan-based Terumo Corp but has called the Ann Arbor area home for nearly 50 years. It is a maker and global exporter of heart and lung machines and other devices used in cardiac surgery. Among its technologies are perfusion products, which are used to temporarily replace the functions of the heart and lungs during cardiac and thoracic surgical procedures, and intraoperative monitoring systems that provide continuous information on important blood parameters during cardiac surgery.

Terumo Cardiovascular Systems recently finished a nearly $5 million investment in upgrading its Ann Arbor facilities. It recently secured a 12-year tax abatement for the project.

Source: Barbara Schmid, director of corporate communications at Terumo Cardiovascular Systems
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Ingenex Digital Marketing's recent growth curve might rest on the new economy of website design and Internet marketing, but it's building its company on some age-old business ideas, like word-of-mouth referrals.

It has tackled website redesigns in the last year for some major players in Michigan, including Cranbrook.edu and Aiag.org. The downtown Ann Arbor-based company wants to continue taking on some more major institutions in the Great Lakes State as clients, but it's going to be choosy.

"We don't want too many clients," says Derek Mehraban, CEO of Ingenex Digital Marketing. "We want clients that are progressive and want to do smart things online." He adds the idea behind this line of thinking is to take on more clients who are interested in long-term work in building their online brands.

Ingenex Digital Marketing has also grown its staff to seven employees and four interns. The 7-year-old company has hired four people in the last year, including a new client-experience manager, account manager, social media director and Google search specialist. The firm is also looking to hire a web developer right now.

"We just do a lot of websites," Mehraban says. "We need more people."

Source: Derek Mehraban, CEO of Ingenex Digital Marketing
Writer: Jon Zemke

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