Entrepreneurship

Ann Arbor SPARK widens community participation

By Newsroom

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May 11, 2011

A rising tide raises all boats. Or, at least, that seems to be the thinking over at Ann Arbor SPARK. The business incubator has reached out to Brighton and other Livingston County communities to become a part of their plan for Michigan's new economy.Excerpt:"The city of Brighton and the four surrounding townships of Brighton, Genoa, Green Oak and Hamburg will likely be joining an Ann Arbor-based economic development organization and business incubator later this year. Ann Arbor SPARK – which was co-founded by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder – has extended an invitation to join the organization."Read the rest of the story here.

Latest in Entrepreneurship

U-M start-up ReGenerate raises nearly $200K in seed capital

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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May 4, 2011

ReGenerate is the newest of the promising start-ups spinning out of the University of Michigan. The two-year-old alternative energy firm has won a number of business plan competitions, securing nearly $200,000 in seed capital over the last year.ReGenerate is developing an on-site anaerobic digester for food service operators. The idea is to divert more organic waste from creating harmful greenhouse gases and towards creating alternative energy. "We saw this as an opportunity for the way waste is handled, specifically organic gases," says Hunt Briggs, director of marketing & finance for ReGenerate. "Most of the organic waste goes into landfills and creates greenhouse gases, like methane. We want to design a system to divert that waste from the landfills and generate energy from that."The Ann Arbor-based firm calls the TechArb home. It most recently won the "Think Green" investment prize from the Rice University Business Plan Competition, beating out dozens of other student-led start-ups competing in the prestigious national event. The $100,000 award is one of seven major investment awards and goes to the best plan in the green technology sector.Briggs hopes to use that money to continue development of the firm's prototype anaerobic digester. Commercialization could come as soon as 2012, along with an expansion of the start-up's staff of five employees and 1-2 summer interns.Source: Hunt Briggs, director of marketing & finance for ReGenerateWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

SPECIALIZE DESIGNS creates new toys for blind and sighted kids

By Newsroom

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Diversity & Equity

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April 27, 2011

Tiffany Huang hasn't spent a lot of time in the professional workforce, but she's been there long enough to know she would prefer to be her own boss.The University of Michigan Ross School of Business student spent a few months working at a major Metro Detroit-based automotive supplier last summer, and didn't like being a small fish in a big pond with no real decision-making ability. That inspired her to pursue her own start-up with some classmates from U-M this year: SPECIALIZE DESIGNS."It was so large I felt I had no say in what was being done," Huang, queen of operations for SPECIALIZE DESIGNS, says of her previous experience. "I wanted to have a say in something smaller."SPECIALIZE DESIGNS is that something smaller. The TechArb-based start-up (founded by Huang and Shaili Dasi) creates toys that can be used by both blind and sighted children. Its first toy is a cross between Simon and Bop It, is shaped like a plate, and requires its users to pay attention to noise and vibrations.Huang and Dasi (along with another U-M student who is no longer with the company) have noticed how the blind community is becoming more integrated with mainstream society. They hope this toy will help further integrate both. "We want to create a solution to bring children together in schools," Huang says.The partners are still working on the prototype and are planning to shop the concept around at toymaker trade shows this summer. Huang expects to bring the toy to market within the next year, with its main customer being schools. Source: Tiffany Huang, queen of operations for SPECIALIZE DESIGNSWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

U-M student start-up, Are You a Human, wins $115K in Rice University Business Plan Competition

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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April 27, 2011

Are You a Human is feeling a little superhuman these days after the Ann Arbor-based start-up recently won six figures' worth of prize money from the Rice University Business Plan Competition, the world's largest such graduate-level competition.The nearly 1-year-old start-up specializes in creating software that gives humans the upper hand over computer programs when it comes to ordering things like concert tickets online. The company won $115,000, taking second place overall and winning the Most Promising Start-Up award."It's all basically going to go toward development," says Reid Tatoris, co-founder of Are You a Human. "Over the next 3-4 months we're going to take our website, which is at an Alpha stage, and take it to a production release stage."Are You a Human is the brain child of Tatoris and Tyler Paxton, both students at the University of Michigan. The duo created a game-based human authentication tool (think Duck Hunt) that replaces the distorted text images known as CAPTCHAs that websites use to authentic a user is actually a person. Tatoris and Paxton now oversee a team of nine, mostly U-M students who work out of the TechArb. They hope to add 2-3 more developers and coders over the next few months as they prepare to commercialize their product later this year. They hope to grow their team to up to 15 people in a year and have 200-300 websites using their technology.Source: Reid Tatoris, co-founder of Are You a HumanWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

METAL design and fabrication studio opens near downtown Ann Arbor

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Arts & Culture

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April 27, 2011

All that glows is not gold, but it may well be metal. About 500 people attended the recent opening of METAL, an Ann Arbor-based design and fabrication shop run by a trio of artisans and found object devotees. "I've been scraping my way though the bottom of plant baskets for metal and combing beaches as long as I can remember so I have a love of a rusty object as well as one that's polished and pristine," co-owner Claudette Stern says.Partners John Walters, Claudette Stern, and Don Billmaier occupy 5,000 square feet of space in a former petroleum and fuel oil distribution center near downtown at 220 Felch Street, just off Main. The brick building topped by a smoke stack sits near the railroad. "I do like the train tracks. I've always lived by the train tracks," co-owner John Walters says. "Plus once we saw what the roof structure of this shop looked like I knew that it was the right place because it just has a wonderful antiquated first growth pine arched ceiling."The shop dabbles in sculptural interpretations, mechanical parts, and useful things with one element in common: metal. Its showroom takes up a quarter of the space and is filled with repurposed antiquated objects and a vintage and industrial line of rust belt period furniture. The fabrication shop sits in an old garage bay. That's where the crafting of sculptures and architectural interior and exterior accent pieces, restoration (including old cars), and R&D (research and design) is done. "Research and design is for people who are looking to make their ideas come to fruition, either within industry or in a more personal nature," Walters explains.The company works with the University of Michigan's school of art and architecture on various projects. On the morning of our interview, Walters had just dropped off some dies for a CNC mandrel bender used in bending pipes. "Specifically we're working to provide support in the build and R&D of this mandrel bending apparatus for this seven-axis robot. It can cut stone, cut styrofoam with a heated wire, can cut logs at various complex angles with a saw apparatus. It's a shop platform which tries to have one machine [the robot] do the functionality of many."The partners are looking to start an apprenticeship program with students from local colleges and Eastern Michigan University and U-M. A summer intern will be starting in May. They also plan to offer classes in blacksmithing, CNC production, milling, fabrication, and the refurbishing and repurposing of outmoded objects.Sources: Claudette Stern and John Walters, co-owners of METALWriter: Tanya Muzumdar

Investors, entrepreneurs to mix at U-M’s Michigan Growth Capital Symposium

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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April 27, 2011

The Michigan Growth Capital Symposium is coming up soon and with the recent string of profitable exits by Ann Arbor-based companies, it's looking to attract a lot of attention.The symposium, in its 30th year, has become the gold standard for start-up investment in the Midwest. About 40 companies will make presentations to a vast array of deep pockets, ranging from angel investors, venture capitalists, corporate interests, and other assorted business interests. These companies regularly are looking for funding between $500,000 and $2 million, and often get it."Any of the harvests you have seen lately, such as Health Media and Accuri Cytometers, have made their appearances at the symposium early," says David Brophy, founder of the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium and a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. "We wouldn't go if there weren't great deals happening. They might not be perfect, but they're darn good deals." Over the last 10 years, 301 local companies have presented there. Of those companies, 71 percent have raised $1.7 billion in capital and 21 percent have recorded profitable exits.The Michigan Growth Capital Symposium will be held on May 10-11 at the Marriott in Ypsilanti. Source: David Brophy, founder of the Michigan Growth Capital SymposiumWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Steve Blank reviews Ann Arbor’s entrepreneurial ecosystem

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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April 20, 2011

Former serial entrepreneur and university lecturer (Standford, Berkeley) Steve Blank spends a few days in Ann Arbor and assesses both our strengths and weaknesses. His final summation: We are a community with only one hand clapping. Excerpt: "Visiting Silicon Valley you can’t mistake that its primary business is innovation. In Ann Arbor and southeast Michigan entrepreneurship is a small part of a more diverse business culture. One of the characteristics of a cluster is that it isn’t hard to find other like-minded individuals. In Ann Arbor, they’re scattered in between the auto industry, biotech, hospital workers, etc. As a consequence Ann Arbor lacks the culture of risk-taking and respect for failure critical in an innovation cluster. You see it in the existing angel groups and VCs. They feel more like banks than risk capital. And that lack of tolerance for failure and comfort with the status quo gets fed back to the entrepreneurs. Getting a few experienced super-angels and/or VCs seeding 5-10 Lean Startup deals here a year, with a couple of Cleantech/energy deals as well, could kickstart the culture. Not My Problem The interesting thing is that no one seems to own the problem. The University of Michigan tech transfer office has an incubator but 1) mixes software, hardware, med devices and life sciences deals in the same program, and 2) takes no ownership of figuring out how to get a risk capital ecosystem in place. Surprisingly, the same with the entrepreneurship center in the Business School. I would have thought they’d be leading the charge." Read the rest of the story here.

The Re-Investors

By Constance Crump

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Economic Development

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April 19, 2011

With the successful exits of Esperion and Accuri, CEO's Roger Newton and Jen Baird could have taken the money and run. Instead, they're establishing new local ventures, reinvesting in Michigan's future, and helping to grow our entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Raw Talent: Chef Swaroop Bhojani, PhD

By Tanya Muzumdar

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Arts & Culture

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April 13, 2011

Whether it's in a research lab or restaurant kitchen, the ability to perfectly mix ingredients is vital for success. Dr. Mahaveer Swaroop Bhojani has got both domains down but until now has only made a career of one. Last week, however, the U-M researcher opened A2's very first Chaat House. Don't know what that is? Read on.

$1 million expansion, green redo takes hold at Ypsilanti’s Corner Brewery

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Arts & Culture

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April 13, 2011

After entering into their first international brewery franchise in Bangalore, India, Matt and Rene Greff are uncapping other ambitious plans for the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti. This time it's a $1 million complete green energy renovation and new addition to the premises.Still in the final stages of obtaining necessary approvals from the city, they hope to break ground on the addition before the end of April, says co-owner Rene Greff. The 2,000-square-foot pre-fab steel structure will be used for storage and a new bottling line, which will allow for the packaging of product in advance. The company has been packaging to order, which was causing lag time and difficulty in keeping up with demand. "We have been experiencing production growth between 20-30% over the last couple of years and we definitely think that will continue and could even accelerate," she notes.The new addition will have a ground water heating and cooling temperature-controlled system and solar tube lighting. Those eco-friendly features will be echoed in the main building as well, which will be undergoing a green energy renovation with the same ground water heating and cooling system and a combination of solar thermal and photovoltaic panels for heating and electricity. New offices for management will also be constructed there. Greff hopes the addition and move will be done by mid-May and the rest of the green renovations by July.The Greffs also have a $75,000 installation of groundwater, solar, and photovoltaic technologies planned for their Arbor Brewing Company brewpub in downtown Ann Arbor. Energy cost savings should in the area of 30-50%, Greff figures, and taking into account the federal tax grants and incentives from DTE, a five-year payback period on the project. "It's a pretty incredible investment," she says.Source: Rene Greff, co-owner, Corner Brewery and Arbor Brewing CompanyWriter: Tanya Muzumdar