Ann Arbor

The SmartEnergy Fund spins out of Ypsilanti’s Clean Energy Coalition

By Newsroom

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March 2, 2011

When the Clean Energy Coalition received a $4.4 million federal grant last year, the general assumption was it would encourage more sustainability practices in Michigan. Now that money is helping launch small clean-tech businesses.Meet The SmartEnergy Fund, a recent second place finisher for the Clean Energy Prize. The University of Michigan student-led firm got its start from a consulting agreement with the Clean Energy Coalition. Now it has $25,000 in seed capital from the Clean Energy Prize to pursue its innovative financing model to retrofit municipal buildings for energy efficiency savings."We want to maximize the impact of the grant dollars," says Graham Brown, project manager for The SmartEnergy Fund. "There is a limited pool of grant funds and how far we can stretch that money."The Ypsilanti-based company is headed up by four U-M students who are splitting time between the university's Ross School of Business and School of Natural Resources, along with the Depot Town-based non-profit. "There is a substantial need for building upgrades in Michigan cities," Brown says.The SmartEnergy Fund entrepreneurs expect to be on the ground working with local municipalities within the next year.Source: Graham Brown, project manager for The SmartEnergy FundWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

U-M startups dominate Clean Energy Prize competition

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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February 23, 2011

Start-ups from the University of Michigan swept the top spots in this year's Clean Energy Prize competition, including first-place winner CSquared Innovations.CSquared Innovations plans to take its $50,000 in prize money to help commercialize its lithium-ion battery technology and pump up its staff to 14 people this year. The U-M Dearborn spin-out is working through the U-M Office of Technology Transfer to build a faster, cheaper, laser-based method of making nano-structured materials and coatings for lithium-ion battery electrodes, solar cells, and industrial coatings. The technology could make the manufacturing process much less expensive. Nick Moroz, vice president of engineering and development for CSquared Innovations, says the Clean Energy Prize really helped his team gain confidence in its product and should help speed up the process of bringing it to market."We got a great amount of exposure and networking experience from it," Moroz says "There were a number of venture capital and angel investors there that started conversations with us."Among the focus areas of the start-ups participating were renewable energy, energy efficiency, smart grid technologies, environmental control technologies, plug-in electric vehicles, energy storage, and creating a mechanism to allow organizations to use their self-created biodiesel through fuel purchase agreements. Two-thirds of those 23 start-ups came from Ann Arbor.The other winners include Smart Energy (second place, $25,000) which is creating an innovative financing model to retrofit municipal buildings for energy efficiency savings. Third place ($10,000) went to Impact Card to develop a funding mechanism that aggregates consumer credit card reward points as project financing for renewable energy development. The last two first place finishers include Algal Scientific and Enertia, which are still developing their technology and gathering seed capital to commercialize their products.Source: Nick Moroz, vice president of engineering and development for CSquared InnovationsWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

NetWorks Group evolves into IT and digital security, adds jobs

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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February 23, 2011

NetWorks Group got its start in 1997, primarily by helping companies get connected to this new mainstream thing called the Internet. Today the downtown Ann Arbor company has evolved into an IT and digital security firm."We specialize in solving difficult problems in regards to networks and security," says Steve Fuller, president and CTO of NetWorks Group. Some of those problems include a service called ethical hacking, where NetWorks Group will test security by hacking into a client's computer system. It also works to better align businesses with their IT needs, such as helping them determine which functions should be done in-house and which ones can be outsourced. "That part of our business has grown dramatically over the last few years," Fuller says. "We grew 125 percent last year."That allowed NetWorks Group to add two jobs in 2010, expanding its staff to 18 employees and a couple of summer interns. It has two openings currently for techies at entry- and senior-level positions.Source: Steve Fuller, president & CTO of NetWorks GroupWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Venture Partners: A Q&A with Michael Godwin and Jason Townsend

By Jon Zemke

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Economic Development

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February 23, 2011

The small scale of Michigan's venture capital community means many ground-floor opportunities for investment. Bay Area émigrés Michael Godwin and Jason Townsend of Resonant Venture Partners wax on the need for a new generation of VC investors and peek into the realm of "dirty tech".

Splink Media links area musicians and businesses

By Newsroom

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Arts & Culture

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February 23, 2011

Vaughan Taylor, AKA Texture, worked the underground music scene in Ann Arbor for much of the last decade as an emcee and producer for locally renowned hip-hop crew Athletic Mic League. That experience, along with a degree from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the University of Central Florida, laid the groundwork for Taylor to launch Splink Media, a marketplace for linking artists and businesses. "I noticed the strengths of independent artists were in their ability to organize and get followers," says Taylor, CEO and co-founder of Splink Media. "It's not in selling records."The Ann Arbor-based start-up provides a platform for companies to tap into the creativity of local artists for marketing campaigns and advertising while also promoting these artists. The 1-year-old start-up is allowing that access on an invitation-only basis while its team of four works out the last of the website's bugs. Taylor expects to open up the site to more people by this summer."We'd like to see this as a local ecosystem for local artists and businesses," Taylor says. "[This could] be like a phone book for local artists."Source: Vaughan Taylor, CEO and co-founder of Splink MediaWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Washtenaw Ave Arbor Hills Crossing development enters planning stage

By Newsroom

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Development News

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February 23, 2011

The Arbor Hills Crossing mixed-use development is moving closer to rising on the vacant 7.45-acre site at the corner of Washtenaw Ave. and Platt Rd. after the plan was presented at a citizens outreach meeting last week. Ann Arbor's Campus Realty, together with Chicago-based North Shore Properties Group, is developing the project, which will go before the Ann Arbor planning commission in March, says Tom Stegeman, Campus Realty's development manager for the project. No cost figures are available yet, Stegeman says, as the project is still at the early architectural design and engineering stage. In the works is an approximately 90,000-square-foot mixed-use center that will be mostly retail, but will hold 10,000 square feet of flex space for either office or residential use, depending on market conditions. The four-building development will be mainly one level, but two of the buildings will have partial second stories. The developer is looking at national tenants and is in "preliminary but meaningful discussions" with regional and local businesses. While releasing specific operators would be premature, Stegeman mentions specialty retailers, apparel purveyors, and food providers as possibilities. Arbor Hills Crossing does not bill itself as a shopping mall or even a shopping center, he says. "With the high-quality architecture and the reasonable, kind of modest scale that we're going for, this is essentially a collection of smaller buildings that create a real sense of place on the site." The developer also plans to integrate the property with the city's push towards alternative forms of transportation. "Connectivity is the word," Stegeman says. "We've listened to the city and worked with our designers... We're certainly going to have bike racks and sidewalks and routing that will connect the property to the adjacent areas." Preliminary discussions with AATA regarding the placement of a bus stop on Washtenaw and an inset bus lane to prevent traffic backups have also been held. Groundbreaking will begin at the end of 2011 at the earliest, Stegeman says, and possibly not until early-to-mid 2012. Source: Tom Stegeman, development manager, Campus Realty Writer: Tanya Muzumdar

Ann Arbor City Council greenlights plot for potential new greenway park and arts center

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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February 23, 2011

Late last month the Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution asking the Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy and the Arts Alliance to collaborate on making over a city-owned 2.2-acre property at 415 W. Washington between First and Third Avenues into a greenway park and arts center. The Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy an advocacy group for a multi-use greenway along the course of Allen Creek (much is now underground, except for a visible portion on U-M's golf course) from the U-M athletic complex to Argo Dam and the Huron River, accented by the city-owned floodway/floodplain parcel at 415 W. Washington. The conservancy is is in the process of applying for grants to cover the $300-500,000 estimated cost for the park portion of 415 W. Washington. This funding will not apply towards the art center component of the project, which Joe O'Neal, a director at the conservancy says is the province of the Arts Alliance. Sources: Joe O'Neal, director at the Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy; FEMA Writer: Tanya Muzumdar

“The Orchid Thief” author and U-M grad Susan Orlean links Borders’ hard times to browsing

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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February 23, 2011

A week after the filing, the Borders bankruptcy is now just big old news. But in her thoughtful perspective on the retailer's demise, Orlean says that book behemoths and indie shops now find their futures intertwined. And as for peeking and putting back? Uh-uh-uh!Excerpt:I feel somewhat responsible for the Borders Books bankruptcy...I spent many afternoons in the store, surrounded by books I’d hauled down from the shelves, reading and whiling away the day. I bought a few of the books, but not many. If you plotted the dollars I spent at the cash register against the time I spent reading books there for free, Borders probably made less than a penny an hour off of me. I was living proof of a doomed business model.Find the full story here.

Seattle Times fills up at Selma Cafe

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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February 23, 2011

At Ann Arbor's Selma Cafe, food is down to earth. That's because the weekly breakfasts plated up by this volunteer-run nonprofit fund hoop-house construction and microloans to seed new farmers. And the nibbles sound so delish. Excerpt: Regulars and newcomers, including some students and staff of the nearby University of Michigan, drop in from 6:30 to 10 a.m. Fridays and slip a recommended $12 to $15 into the jars scattered around communal tables. After deducting food costs, they've chipped in at least $90,000 for a revolving fund for micro loans to fledgling farmers... [Angela Eikenberry, a University of Nebraska-Omaha assistant professor of public policy who studies philanthropy] says she isn't aware of "any other groups that make loans. ... It's very encouraging for me to hear these kinds of things going on." A National Farmers Union official is similarly enthusiastic. "What a great idea! I've not personally heard of any other communities pulling together and doing something like that," says Chandler Goule, vice president and lobbyist. He says it's particularly helpful because, in recent years, "credit was extremely tight" for farmers seeking bank loans. Find the full story here.

Stout Systems expects 50% growth in tech staffing business

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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February 23, 2011

The job levees are giving way; you can tell by taking a close look at Stout Systems.The Ann Arbor-based technology staffing firm helped 30-plus highly skilled people transition into new work in 2010. It's also seen a rise in its own core staff to keep up with demand. In 2007, three people held executive and administrative roles. Today the firm has six full-time and one part-time positions to handle those duties. It's also is in the process of hiring another 1-2 people to augment that core staff."There has been an explosive demand for technical people," says John Stout, president and founder of Stout Systems. "There is a lot of pent up demand in the IT and software business. We have more job openings for us and our clients than we have seen in 10 years."Stout Systems either finds technical people or sends its own techies out to its customers to get jobs done. These workers cover all technology aspects, ranging from IT to software development. This year Stout expects a 50-percent sales increase."That represents a real growth in the demand for our services," Stout says.Source: John Stout, president & founder of Stout SystemsWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.