Nearly 30 student-led start-ups at the University of Michigan are splitting close to $30,000 in seed capital grants from the U-M’s Ross School of Business Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. The Dare to Dream and Venture Shaping grant programs give out seed capital grants that range in size from $500 to $10,000. The types […]
Sure Kickstarter is great for projects involving computer games, indie films, CD releases, graphic novels, and pop culture doo-dads. But what about fermented cabbage? David Klingenberger of Ann Arbor's The Brinery is hoping to raise enough funds to buy 12,000 pounds of locally grown cabbage, a bunch of barrels, and the staff to help him on his “40 Barrels in 40 Nights” project. Excerpt: "The Brinery, whose biggest customer is Zingerman’s Deli, is ready to double production, producing 40 more 55-gallon barrels of sauerkraut, Klingenberger said, as the local cabbage crop is nearing the end of its harvest time. He has 12,000 pounds of cabbage lined up from local farms. He also needs to purchase 40 plastic barrels, where the fermentation process takes places. And he needs to pay staff." Read the rest here.
An Ann Arbor-based venture capitalist is helping connect Metro Detroit's emerging investment community with the rest of the world by opening the Detroit chapter of TiE called TiE Detroit Angels. Sonali Vijayavargiya is the managing partner of Augment Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that launched out of Ann Arbor last year. She is now chairing TiE Detroit Angels as a way of growing the region's investment community and connecting it with opportunities around the world. TiE Detroit Angels will focus on investing in a broad range of promising start-ups. "This group is made up of a diverse group of people," Vijayavargiya says. "We have physicians and entrepreneurs. We will invest across sectors." TiE is a global, not-for-profit, non-political, and non-religious organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurs around the world. When TiE first started it stood for The Indus Entrepreneurs, which signifies the ethnic South Asian or Indus roots of the founders. Today TiE stands for Talent, Ideas and Enterprise. TiD Detroit Angels will focus on forming an investment consortium of wealthy individuals willing to provide seed capital to promising startups in Metro Detroit. The group expects to grow to a size of about 30 members within its first year and will look at the pitches from dozens of local startups from a number of different sectors. Source: Sonali Vijayavargiya, chair of TiE Detroit Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Reporter and blogger Jeff Wattrick decides to travel from Royal Oak to Ann Arbor (a mere 52 miles) to take in the U-M vs MSU football game on Saturday. This is his story. Excerpt: "It’s certainly the less stressful choice. I might have gone full-on Michael Douglas in Falling Down trying to endure Michigan Stadium traffic. Seriously, traffic jams before and after the game were like a goddamned REM video. Instead of living out traffic hell scenarios from early 1990s entertainment, I sat on the train and watched an episode of The Wire on my iPad. What’s more, if the planned Detroit-Ann Arbor commuter rail line ever comes to fruition, the train to a Michigan game could be even more cost-effective. Compared to fares for the long-haul Amtrak, commuter rail is generally less expensive. The most expensive ride on the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority commuter rail, for example, costs $11 and MBTA lines run with greater frequency." Read the rest here.
Aesthetically speaking, the shelter in Ann Arbor's Allmendinger Park is best described as functional. Others might be less generously inclined. This weekend, however, it becomes an example of how public art and community engagement can transform a nondescript building into a vibrant neighborhood asset.
Internet companies big and small have been struggling with how best to commercialize advertising on mobile devices. A new start-up based in Ann Arbor, AdAdapted, thinks it has an answer. "Mobile advertising really isn't working for anyone," says Michael Pedersen, founder of AdAdapted. The Tech Brewery-based start-up's software solves this problem with an advertising platform that allows advertisers to work with developers to strategically place ads in things like mobile video games. Think of it as an in-app product placement. "We allow the developer to have more control where an ad will go," Pedersen says. AdAdapted recently received financing from the Michigan Microloan Fund. Loan amounts from that fund aren't disclosed but are about five-figures in size on average. The 4-month-old start-up and its seven team members plan to use its loan to expand its product platform and prepare for the launch of its Beta version. "The Beta should be done with in the next few weeks," Pedersen says. "We're also working on landing our first pilot." Source: Michael Pedersen, founder of AdAdapted Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Let's say you're a student at the University Of Michigan, and you're wondering why your tuition is what it is. Well, now there's a course for that. Excerpt: "Fifty-six students are registered this semester for "The Challenge of College Affordability: Financing the University," a series of seven two-hour lectures taught by top administrators at the public university. The course, geared toward sophomores, is designed to explain where the school gets revenue, what drives its costs and how that translates into tuition rates and financial-aid packages." Read the rest here.
Weinreich Labs is reinventing the violin in Ann Arbor, creating technology that preserves the quality of the amplified and recorded sounds of the instrument. The 2-year-old start-up was founded by a violin maker, a physicist, an engineer and a designer. The company's instrument is a violin that produces heirloom quality music when amplified or recorded. It is expected to give musicians the ability to amplify a acoustic sound (think stereo speakers) without feedback or loss of tonal character, problems that have long plagued the music industry. "If a players buys one of our products they're buying an instrument that sounds great in an amplified setting," says Alex Sobolev, CEO of Weinreich Labs. "It also works in a recording studio where it can be very challenging to properly mic stringed instruments." Weinreich Labs' four person team is putting the finishing touches on its prototypes and plans to begin commercializing its violins early next year. The firm recently received financing from the Michigan Microloan Fund (each microloan is worth about five figures worth of seed capital on average) that it is using to buy production-quality electronics and develop a mobile app. "This loan does a number of things for us," Sobolev says. "In the worst-case scenario, this gets us to a trade show with a number of prototypes to showcase." Source: Alex Sobolev, CEO of Weinreich Labs Writer: Jon Zemke
Greenland is hardly anyone's idea of a celebratory destination but that's where University of Michigan assistant professor Sarah Aciego is headed with her Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering award. Though far from paradise, it is a great place to study what melted ice water can reveal about global climate change. Excerpt: "Aciego is an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences in the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; and assistant professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences in the College of Engineering. Among the classes she teaches is an undergraduate class in geomorphology, the study of how glaciers, rivers and landslides have shaped the surface of the earth." Read the rest here.
The Michigan Microloan Fund, a program managed by Ann Arbor SPARK, has made another round of microloans to a broad range of start-ups, most of which are based in Ann Arbor. The Michigan Microloan Fund makes microloans worth between $10,000 and $50,000 to small businesses developing new technology in Michigan. The loans are meant to help augment the shrinkage of traditional financing options since the onset of the recession. One of the recipients, Grand Rapids-based FoodCircles, is using the seed capital to develop more versions of the 4-month-old's mobile apps. "The mircoloan has allowed us to try a lot of different experiments," says Jonathan Kumar, managing director of FoodCircles. He oversees a team of four employees and two interns. The Michigan Microloan Fund has made $2.8 million in microloans to 62 companies since its launch in July, 2009. This latest round of microloans disbursed $232,000 to seven company, of which five are based in Ann Arbor. Among the Ann Arbor-based start-ups to receive microloans are: - AdAdapted, a software firm developing an advertising platform for games played on mobile devices. - AMF-Nano, a bio-tech company developing innovative nano sensors. - Child Care Daily App, a mobile app business creating software that simplifies the daily activities of child care providers by doing things like automating handwritten tasks. - PicoSpray, a tech firm commercializing a low-cost electronic fuel injection system for small engines. - Weinreich Labs, a tech business developing heirloom quality amplified violins. Source: Jonathan Kumar, managing director of FoodCircles Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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