Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup: November 2009
November 18, 2009
In honor of Global Entrepreneurship Week, we were proud to have 4 University of Michigan student startups present (and the fifth, also a young entrepreneur) at this month’s Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup:
- Adrian Fortino, Shepard Intelligent Systems - real-time transit information systems (e.g. MagicBus)
- Alan Shreve, YouCompete - social competition platform
- Royce Channey, VOI! - hardshell designer iPhone case - with a strap!
- Jeremy Canfield, Phonagle - location-based iPhone word game
- Steve Fentriss, SmallerPage - simple websites for any screen size
(select timeline marks to view specific presentations)
As always, thanks to MC David Bloom and videographer Roger Rayle (and son)!
New Enterprise Forum: Term Sheets
October 15, 2009
Skip Simms, managing director of SPARK’s business accelerator and pre-seed fund moderated a highly-compressed discussion of venture capital at tonight’s New Enterprise Forum. As Tim Damschroder (Bodman LLP) summarized, West Coast terms are generally easier, East Coast terms generally tougher, and most Midwest deals he’s seen are, predictably, somewhere in the middle. Chris Rizik (Renaissance Venture Capital Fund) and Eric Sieczka (Pixel Velocity, and co-founder of EOTech, which exited for nearly $50M in 2005) also walked the group through preferences, capital structure, and the VC “math problem”. Slides from September and October’s meetings:
Some of the questions I heard tonight weren’t strictly related to term sheets, but earlier-stage startup issues and more general funding questions I’ve seen answered elsewhere:
- http://www.cdixon.org/?p=367
- http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/07/22/do-you-really-even-need-vc/
- http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/08/14/angel-funding-advice/
- http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2009/04/startup-valuation-top-ten-techniques.html
- http://www.firstascentventures.com/blog/?p=17
- http://redeye.firstround.com/2009/10/company-math-vs-vc-math.html
Presenting companies tonight included Midland’s Advanced Battery Concepts and Ann Arbor’s Bio Logic Engineering.
Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup: September 2009
September 19, 2009
Video of our September Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup, courtesy of Roger Rayle! #a2newtech
Current Motor Company - plug-in electric scooters
Mobiata - best-selling iPhone travel applications
TherapyCharts - small-office electronic medical records management
Audiallo - fabless semiconductor company making low-power acoustic processing chips
Michigan Programs for Startup Capital
July 14, 2009
Michigan has a lot of interesting capital programs for local startup and early-stage growth companies. Many are tied to regional Smart Zones, organizational affiliations, and sometimes with a process that looks more like traditional banking than private investment (”send in your application”) with attendant delays - but often non-dilutive or otherwise entrepreneur-friendly.
Most folks know of the SPARK pre-seed fund which has funded 31 companies in the last 2 years as a match program (2x against any equity investment - or even a grant or friends & family convertible note!) but there are several others available, including the curious new micro-loan program - 2-year term with no personal guarantee/collateral on a 12% subordinated note.
If you’re starting a company as a Michigan alum, or in the Ann Arbor area, or in a Michigan Smart Zone, be sure to check out what support the state and local economic development agencies or University groups have to offer!
Nouveau Angel Capital Corp, the first public angel fund?
July 2, 2009
Michigan’s Great Lakes Angels President Rick Galdi says his phone has been ringing off the hook this week after the Crain’s Detroit Business coverage of his new cross-border venture, the Nouveau Angel Capital Corp.
While we’ve seen other attempts to create marketplaces to trade traditionally illiquid assets, Nouveau is a bit of clever cross-border financial engineering that seeks to repurpose an existing, structured, well-regulated Canadian financial instrument to connect small companies to public capital - the Capital Pool Company - but instead of raising capital, say, to hire a team of geologists to dig for oil, they’ll be digging for new early stage technology companies to invest in. Rick says the team spent 80% of the time vetting the instrument and only 20% doing the deal, motivated by their frustrations in trying to organize an angel group in Windsor and getting tech deals done in reasonable time. Nouveau will be based in Windsor, targeting investments in both Michigan and Canada.
While it seems unusual to “take a company public before it goes public”, there’s clearly precedent (e.g. reverse mergers, although a CPC is just cash - a “clean shell”) and a demonstrated need for greater liquidity which seems to exist just over the border where over 40 companies have gone public on the TSX Venture Exchange since January. TSX SVP Ungad Chadda has described the CPC program as “public bootstrapping” for small companies - or in Nouveau’s case, a vehicle to help close the early stage funding gap for startups.
They’ve just lined up their founding directors, and hope to file with the exchange and raise $2M by the end of August (hiring a broker to sell shares to 200 investors in Phase 1), after which they intend to raise $18M more through the sale of public shares after making their first investment.
Angelsoft’s Ryan Pipkin and I believe this will be the first effectively public angel fund - anybody know otherwise?
May 19: Ann Arbor New Tech May Meetup, with Rick Snyder
May 18, 2009
We have a very special meetup this month - following our regular program, we’ll welcome Rick Snyder, CEO of Ann Arbor venture capital firm Ardesta and former COO of Gateway Computer, for a town hall session as he considers his gubernatorial bid in Michigan!
Leading into the town hall session, we’ll have 4 companies take the stage for 10 minutes each, 5 minutes to demo and 5 minutes to answer questions. We’ll close the event with community announcements and open networking in the atrium.
- John Barrie, Appropriate Technology Collaborative
- Jim Deakins, Lyfe
- Drew Leahy & Bobby Matson, MyBandStock
- Tim Stephens, Speedraft
Please RSVP if you can join us!
May 12-13: Michigan Growth Capital Symposium
May 9, 2009
David Brophy and the UM Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance are again hosting the most important venture capital event in the Midwest - the 28th annual Michigan Growth Capital Symposium.
It was a rough Q1 across the board for VC firms, and Michigan has been particularly challenged with only a handful of operating funds remaining in the state. But last month’s announcement of a $36M Series A for Lycera in Ann Arbor reaffirms that the nearly $3M spent every day on UM research translates into excellent venture opportunities.
MGCS will feature over 65 investment firms, 32 presenting companies, and two solid days of panels, discussions, and high-level networking. If you’re currently raising money in Michigan, you need to be at MGCS!
May 4, 5: Social Entrepreneurship on Facebook, and Non-Dilutive Early-Stage Startup Finance
April 30, 2009
Two back-to-back events next week to kick off the month of May:
- Monday, May 4: (Lil) Green Patch: Social Entrepreneurship and Virtual Economies on Facebook
- Tuesday, May 5: Non-Dilutive Finance for Early Stage Startups
The former will be held in the conference center of the beautiful Michigan Information Technology Center (housing Merit and Internet2). We’ve also invited a number of environmental nonprofits and related organizations to join us.
The latter will be held in Blau Auditorium in the amazing new Ross Business School building at UM with students from David Brophy’s Entrepreneurial Finance course, as well as the CEO of Lycera, who most recently closed a $36M round of venture capital after receiving a number of grants, tax credits, and equipment through various state programs. We’ll also have time for networking afterwards with a Co-founders’ Corner of the room where folks looking for potential business or engineering co-founders can meet.
Please RSVP at http://a2newtech.org if you can join us!
TechNow 09: Apr 23, Royal Oak Music Theater
April 22, 2009
Join us tomorrow night at the Royal Oak Music Theater for what promises to be an amazing startup event / party in celebration of Michigan’s future - TechNow 09!
Jordan, Mason, and Zach have put together, for a single night, what looks like the best of the all the tech startup events we’ve done in Ann Arbor over the last few months - and then added a band on top, in a 1k+ capacity venue!
Five Michigan startups will be presenting, including two Ann Arbor Startup Drinks regulars – ShopFiber (by Detroit Startup Blog author Jake Lumetta) and Hab.la (a company out of the TechBrewery in Ann Arbor).
Don’t miss out - RSVP now!
Ann Arbor Startup Drinks - Thurs Apr 16 at Grizzly Peak
April 16, 2009
from Brandon Dimcheff and Matt Pizzimenti:
Startup Drinks is happening again tonight, this time at Grizzly Peak in downtown Ann Arbor between 8 and 10pm. If you haven’t heard of Startup Drinks before, this little blurb from our website (http://annarbor.startupdrinks.com/) explains it: ”A simple concept: startup culture in cities around the world gathers around a bar to have a pint and discuss what they are working on, what they need help with and what they can do for each other.”
RSVP on the Facebook event and while you’re there, sign up for our Facebook group so we can keep in contact with those that you meet tonight.
Hope to see you all there tonight!