Huron River Ventures, an Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, Michigan-based venture capital firm, announced late last week that they have raised their first venture capital fund.

“We started working on this fund in 2010 and we had our first close at $7.5 million in March 2011,” managing director Tim Streit told AnnArbor.com.

Huron River Ventures is a ten year fund and to date they’ve deployed about 30% across seven different companies. They plan to invest in another 7 or 8 companies within the next two to three years and round out the fund at 15.

The fund was started by Streit and college friend Ryan Waddington, who met at the University of Michigan. The goal of the fund was to invest in Michigan companies and with that mission they were able to raise an initial $6 million dollars from the State of Michigan as part of their Accelerator Fund Program.

“We’re here, we want Michigan deals, and that’s what we focus on… we invest in Michigan-based companies or companies that have a strong presence in the state. Almost all of our capital is from the state or investors who are from Michigan or still live here.” Streit said.

Announcing a fund’s closing is basically a formality; however it sends a signal to Michigan entrepreneurs that Huron River is funded and ready to invest.

Find out more about Huron River Ventures here.

source

Check out this new startup accelerator in Michigan, Coolhouse Labs.

Image.

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