Michigan Archives - Page 3 of 3

Michigan Startup: Current Motor, First In Dell’s $100M Startup Fund

An Ann Arbor Michigan based startup called Current Motor, is the first startup to benefit from Dell’s new $100 million dollar Innovator’s Financing Fund. Current Motor is developing electric powered scooters.

The fund, announced Thursday, is entirely funded by Austin based pc powerhouse Dell. Their Entrepreneur in Residence, Ingrid Vandervelt, came up with the idea for the fund, under the supervision of the entrepreneur in residence advisory board.

Current Motor is using the funds from Dell, along with their expertise and “24 hour support” to help them implement an e-commerce system that handles customer service tracking, and also tracks important information on the scooters, such as battery life remaining. They want this entire system to be accessible via mobile app, similar to that of some of the shared bicycle and car apps out there (ZipCar).

“In exchange for a low monthly payment, we get one point of contact and a really comprehensive, scalable technology solution that allowed us to get to market six months ahead of schedule, while conserving our equity capital for sales, marketing, research and development,” Lauren Flanagan, executive chairman and an angel investor in the company told the Austin Statesman.

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Michigan Startup: Rippld Get’s $50,000 To Expand Social Network For Creative Professionals

Rippld a social network to promote, collaborate and bring creative together has announced the receipt of a $50,000 micro loan investment to continue working and expanding their network.

This innovative startup for creative professionals is a resident at Wayne State University’s TechTown incubator.

“Friends ask us all the time where to find creative talent,” said co-founder Adrian Walker, who conceived of Rippld with his partner Wilbert Fobbs III when trying to get a fledgling video production company off the ground. “I looked at what was out there in the online landscape and nothing offered the kind of access or information people were looking for. Rippld fills that gap.”

Statewide, Michigan has seen a huge uptick in startups forming in the state or moving into the state. In fact, just this morning we reported on the budding community of 37 startups and innovative companies at Ann Arbor’s TechBrewery, and their newest tenant the team behind PaperDesk.

As for Rippld, Michigan is firmly home of the social startup, in fact, co-founder Lander Cornado-Garcia moved back from Chicago to Detroit to help start Rippld.

“TechTown and its sister incubators have been and continue to be critical to Rippld’s success,” said Coronado-Garcia. “The one-on-one coaching, business plan support and networking capability we accessed through TechTown positioned us to be competitive in our bid for this pre-seed loan and validated the integrity of our business model. We owe this victory in large part to TechTown and its partners.”

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Ann Arbor’s TechBrewery Welcomes Innovators Behind PaperDesk

Ann Arbor’s TechBrewery is part co-working space, part incubator and home to some of the top innovators in Ann Arbor’s thriving startup community.

Scott and Lida Hasbrouck are the innovators behind the educational notepad app PaperDesk. PaperDesk is the duo’s most well known app under their WebSpinner brand. It’s a note taking app developed with educational purposes in mind, and aimed at replacing traditional spiral and composition notebooks.

PaperDesk, is not what the Hasbrouck’s plan on working on at TechBrewery though. They will be working on a new educational startup that goes by the name Ginkgotree. They’re also bringing an iOS developer, 3D animator and graphic designer to the TechBrewery as well.

Ginkgotree will fall under the TechEd category, but it’s unclear exactly what they will be doing. Their website currently has a place for a login and the words “Learn Beautifully” on it, on a chalkboard, no less.

Ginkgotree will join these 37 other startups and innovator members of TechBrewery.

“We’re excited about our new beginning at the Tech Brewery,” states Lida Hasbrouck “and participating in the Silicon Valley of the Midwest.”

They’re not the only entrepreneurs and members of the startup community excited about Ann Arbor. The Foundry’s Jason Mendelson recently spoke at an event in Michigan and talked about how Ann Arbor is starting to thrive. Also we recently profiled Michigan startup HealPay who was happy to be moving back to AnnArbor to continue working on their FinTech web applications.

Two students also launched their note taking app called FetchNotes in Ann Arbor. All of this startup excitement in Ann Arbor is why we’re trying to make Ann Arbor, and actually most of Michigan, part of our nationwide sneaker-strapped startup road trip.

We can’t wait to see what the Hasbroucks have planned for Ginkgotree, and what else brews out of TechBrewery.

Linkage:

Ginkgotree’s website can be found here

Checkout TechBrewery here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” check out these other Michigan stories

Check out our sneaker-strapped startup road trip here

Michigan Startup HealPay: Developing Innovative Fintech Web Applications INTERVIEW

When you put together a Ruby on Rails developer with five years of experience working for engine yard, and a serial entrepreneur with two previous successful exits, move them to Ann Arbor Michigan, you’ve got HealPay. HealPay is the latest startup for serial entrepreneur Erick Bzovi, who teamed together with co-founder Lancelot Carlson to bring innovative fintech (Financial Tech) web apps to market.

HealPay currently has two billing applications aimed at enterprise available today. However, they plan on continually producing easy to use, but robust applications to handle financial tasks efficiently.

We got the opportunity to talk with Bzovi about HealPay and their fintech app development startup.

Where are you located?

After receiving some seed capital [http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/after-receiving-an-angel-investment], we opened an office in downtown Ann Arbor. We think this is the best place to start a tech business in Michigan!

Tell us about (and describe) a few of your apps:

We’ve developed two billing applications for the enterprise.

Our SettlementApp helps large businesses, e.g collection agencies, settle with consumers by offering flexible & friendly payment options. People are more willing (& able) to pay their bills when given options to do so. Creating a 3, 6 or 9 month payment plan is a breeze.

Our BillerApp helps small businesses, e.g. sole proprietors & contractors, send out invoices in a matter of minutes. The app is currently free and was considered one of the Best Invoicing Tools amongst Design professionals. [source: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665487/infographic-of-the-day-the-best-design-tools-on-the-market]

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Foundry’s Jason Mendelson, Now Bullish On Michigan Startup Scene

The Michigan Growth Capital Symposium was held this past Tuesday and Wednesday in Ypsilanti. Xconomy’s Sarah Schmid reports that over 450 founders, entrepreneurs, VCs, and others in the Michigan startup community showed out for the event.

Among them was the managing director and co-founder of Foundry Group, Jason Mendelson who gave a keynote address entitled: “The Velocity of the Midwest Venture Capital Ecosystem: Sleeping Giants or Momentary Blips?”

During his speech he was very positive about the current startup scene in Michigan. Mendelson is no stranger to the state of Michigan. He was born in Detroit and graduated from the university of Michigan. While this weeks talk was all positive, it wasn’t always that way for Mendelson and his native state.

After graduating from law school at the University of Michigan, Mendelson wanted to stay in Michigan but he quickly found that the state, so deep rooted in the auto industry, didn’t care if someone had the next million dollar idea. At that time no one cared about anything except seniority.

So like any aspiring entrepreneur Mendelson made a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley, an experience he doesn’t speak to highly of.

Mendelson said that the competition in Silicon Valley was so harsh that the only pleasure in life came from relishing in others’ failure. Mendelson described Silicon Valley to Schmid as “toxic” ultimately causing him to leave in 2006 and head for Boulder Colorado.

Michigan Startup: Credentialock Is A Cloud Vault For All Your Credentials

Do you have any certifications? What about your college and high school diploma? Where are your high school and college transcripts? What about that real estate license? All of these questions could probably be answered in one place if Credentialock was around 20 years ago.

Credentialock is a new Michigan startup that just launched their free web based version this past week. It is essentially a cloud based vault for all of your important credentials, transcripts and licenses.

More and more people are turning to cloud based storage for their important computer files. Even more people are turning to digital storage for things like receipts,important papers, even back up copies of drivers license, credit card and passport information. While some may already have some kind of digital record of their “credentials” Credentialock makes it easy to store all of your important papers in one spot.

“My wife is in the insurance industry and she has over 100 documents of certification from 20 different states to keep track of, so we always use her as the benchmark,” Credentialock CEO Scott Slyfield CEO told Sara Schmid of Xconomy. “Instead of having our employers keep track of this stuff, we need to be able to own and manage it ourselves. It’s really empowering.”

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Michigan Startups: Amway Heir Rick Devos Launches StartGarden

Rick Devos Michigan Entrepreneur & Heir to the Amway Fortune launches startgarden.com

For nearly a decade now the heir apparent to the Amway fortune, Rick Devos has been establishing his own name in Michigan’s business circles. He is a creative entrepreneur who loves getting feedback from the public on his business endeavors, that’s why he’s started the Start Garden.

The Devos family has pledged $15 million dollars to the very unique Start Garden fund, competition, accelerator, contest of sorts. Here’s how it works. Every week the new venture capital fund will invest $5,000 in each of the two new ideas. They will continue to invest incrementally as the startups gain momentum. The first uniquely Devos twist is that the Start Garden team will choose the first idea, while the public at large can vote on the second.

Startups and entrepreneurs will submit their idea on the Start Garden website at startgarden.com. The public will have the opportunity to come to the website and vote on the idea. At the end of the week the idea with the most endorsement will win the second $5,000 dollars.

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