Saline's Eco-Fueling hires 4, wins $25K at Accelerate Michigan

Eco-Fueling is racking up some smaller seed-capital checks but expects to land a large seed-capital round worth as much as $3 million next year.

"We have a few deals that are in the works that look promising," says Paul Chandler, CEO of Eco-Fueling.

The Saline-based start-up is developing combustion-optimization technology that will improve fuel consumption and emissions for diesel engines. It recently won the Advanced Transportation award at the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition last month. That was worth $25,000, which comes on top of a $25,000 microloan from the Michigan Microloan Fund and a $50,000 research grant from the state of Michigan.

"This gives us a little bit of a boost," Chandler says.

The company is using that money along with sales revenue and self-funding from Chandler to continue development of the technology. The plan is to use a seed-capital round of fundraising to accelerate the commercialization of the technology.

Eco-Fueling has hired four people over the last year, expanding its staff to five people. Chandler hopes to continue growth his team next year as it works to do a demonstration of the technology in vehicles.

Source: Paul Chandler, CEO of Eco-Fueling
Writer: Jon Zemke

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