News

Quicken Loans and its family of companies are gearing up for another big internship push this summer that could bring as many as 1,000 young people into the fold of the downtown Detroit-based firm.

The mortgage origination firm brought in excess of 500 interns last summer and a total of 750 for the entire year. This year, the goal is 1,000 for 2013 with the bulk of them (700-800) set to come in during the summer. The internships will be primarily for Quicken Loans proper, but other firms in the Quicken Loans family of companies, such as FatHead and One Reverse Mortgage, will also draw from the Quicken Loans internship talent pool.

"It's a tremendous value," says Michelle Salvatore, director of recruiting for Quicken Loans. "It's helping us with our candidate pool. We can engage with them and train them. It's really been our biggest candidate source."

Many of those internships turn into jobs. Salvatore says the company turned 78 percent of the interns who weren't returning to school into new employees. Quicken Loans currently employs several thousand and regularly has dozens of new jobs up for grabs at any one time. A vast majority of those employees and interns are based in downtown Detroit.

Quicken Loans interns are not only introduced to the company's go-getter culture but also the greater downtown area. Quicken Loans does at least six events that introduce the interns to the city each summer, such as outings to Tigers games and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

"We try to show them a lot of the city while they are here," Salvatore says. "A true urban core is what we try to expose them to."

Source: Michelle Salvatore, director of recruiting for Quicken Loans
Writer: Jon Zemke

Detroit Farm and Garden is gearing up for its second growing season in Southwest Detroit.

The landscaping supply company is looking to hire two new people in time for the spring season, including a sales associate and a delivery driver. The hires will bring the company's staff to five people and allow it to capitalize on the goodwill it has earned in its first year of business.

"It went really well," says Jeff Klein, co-owner of Detroit Farm and Garden. "We have gotten a great response from the community. People are really glad we're here."

Klein and his partner, Andy Ray, launched Detroit Farm and Garden last spring to help fill the need for providing supplies to local landscaping professionals and urban farmers. They opened in a former police station off West Vernor Avenue in the shadow of the Michigan Central Station and have turned the space into a hub for the local community, selling top spoil and seeds in the summer and holding community concerts in the winter.

Detroit Farm and Garden has also expanded the products it offers to include tools and products from Reclaim Detroit, such as planter boxes. "Our inventory is continuing to grow," Klein says. "We want to get more into season-extending products, such as the plastic used for green houses."

Source: Jeff Klein, co-owner of Detroit Farm and Garden
Writer: Jon Zemke

Last year meant several things to North Coast Technology Investors. The Ann Arbor-based venture capital firm made some high-profile investments, expanded its portfolio and began deploying its third investment fund in earnest.

"It was one of the most active years we had in a while," says Hugo Braun, co-founder of North Coast Technology Investors.

The 20-year-old venture capital firm has in excess of $100 million under management through three investment funds that are invested in 35 companies. It closed on its third investment vehicle, worth $30 million, in 2010 and currently has eight portfolio firms in that fund.

It's latest investment is in Stik, an Internet start-up based in downtown Detroit's M@dison Building. North Coast Technology Investors co-led the Series A round worth $2.3 million with Detroit Venture Partners. Stik's technology helps authenticate that online reviews were made by actual people. It was founded by two Metro Detroit natives that graduated from Harvard with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg. They moved it to downtown Detroit last fall and have since hired six people.

North Coast Technology Investors' investment in Stik was its fourth of 2012. Among its higher-profile investments from last year was a follow-up investment in Ann Arbor-based CytoPherx, a clinical stage medical device company. Braun expects North Coast Technology Investors' team of three to make four investments this year.

Source: Hugo Braun, co-founder of North Coast Technology Investors
Writer: Jon Zemke

Macomb-OU INCubator has landed a couple of large grants this year, totaling to a bit more than $1.2 million in new funding.

The business accelerator based in Sterling Heights has won a $500,000 marketing grant from the state of Michigan to help get the word out about its entrepreneurial efforts. It has also scored a $776,000 federal grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to help get more local companies involved in the defense and homeland security industries.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grant is meant to help encourage more Metro Detroit companies to engage the growing defense sector in Macomb County. The grant helps pay for educational programs, such as showing them how to clear the federal hurdles to compete for defense contracts. It is also looking to set up a $350,000 matching funds program for companies looking to raise seed capital.

"We want to help some people with some matching awards," says Larry Herriman, director of Michigan's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Matching Funds program. "We want to sweeten the pot."

The Michigan Economic Development Corp also awarded a $500,000 grant to the Macomb-OU INCubator. The money will allow the business accelerator to provide entrepreneurial resources, capital, and provide more assistance and access to Oakland University resources and the student internship program.

It will also beef up program offerings to small business clients, such as the Lunch and Launch series, Fireside Chats (where successful entrepreneurs tell their stories), an Executives-in-Residence program, business advisory boards and a monthly Capital Raise Meetup.

Source: Larry Herriman, director of Michigan's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Matching Funds program
Writer: Jon Zemke

GSTV is fleshing out both its presence in major advertising markets across North America and its staff in downtown Birmingham.

The nearly 7-year-old company has added 12 positions to its workforce, expanding its staff to 60 employees and a couple of summer interns. It has more than a dozen open jobs now for positions in sales, marketing, business development, human resources and software development.

"We have gotten very busy in terms of hiring," says David Leider, CEO of GSTV. "We needed to hire a recruiter to handle it. We have 15 positions open now."

GSTV, formerly Gas Station TV, is the company that puts the TVs on top of gas station pumps. The screens flash news, weather forecasts and commercials during a couple of minutes when motorists are paused in their commute and looking for something to focus on.

The concept has taken off. GSTV is now in 1,900 gas stations across the nation, collecting 39 million monthly viewers. That's up from 1,300 stations. GSTV is in 36 states and every major media market in North America, doubling its presence in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago. It expects to continue fleshing out its presence in 2013.

"We continue to grow quickly," Leider says. "By April we will have 2,000 stations and 40 million monthly viewers all over the country."

Source: David Leider, CEO of GSTV
Writer: Jon Zemke

Accent Reduction Institute could have moved wherever it wanted last year when Menlo Innovations, which it shared office space with, relocated from its Kerrytown headquarters closer to the University of Michigan's campus. Instead, the 7-year-old company found another office in downtown Ann Arbor.

"This is home to us even though north of 98 percent of our clients are outside of southeast Michigan," says Judy Ravin, president & founder of Accent Reduction Institute. She adds that she and her executive team "love Ann Arbor. We are three University of Michigan graduates. We feel really connected to the community. It's a wonderfully business community."

Accent Reduction Institute's close ties to U-M were a major reason for it staying nearby. The university serves a pipeline of talent for the company, mostly in the form of interns. Accent Reduction Institute has hired three of its former interns over the last year, expanding its staff to 20 people and 3-4 interns each year.

"Our interns provide a wonderful pipeline for other interns," Ravin says. We get fantastic people to work with."

The Accent Reduction Institute provides accent reduction training programs for non-native English speakers so they can carry on communication seamlessly. It also develops English pronunciation software to help people eliminate language barriers while maintaining their unique cultural identity. Menlo Associates, the holding company for Menlo Innovations, is still a major investor.

Ravin points out that the talent gap for major companies is driving the Accent Reduction Institute's recent growth. She explains that as more baby boomers retire the company's are scrambling to find their best talent to replace them in the workforce. That in turn is prompting Accent Reduction Institute to add to its staff. It is currently looking for up to two more linguistics professionals.

Source: Judy Ravin, president & founder of Accent Reduction Institutue
Writer: Jon Zemke

The University of Michigan has worked for years to commercialize its research into growing businesses, employing a variety of programs that often look to pair university researchers with university business students and graduates. Michigan I-Corps is looking to broaden that scope.

The new entrepreneurial training program, part of the National Science Foundation's National I-Corps initiative, is looking to not only empower the entrepreneurial ambitions of university's research and business classes but also entrepreneurs and scientists from outside of Ann Arbor's ivory towers. Any Michigan-based technologist, regardless of academic affiliation or funding source, is eligible. The program is recruiting teams from Michigan's universities, tech companies and startups funded by venture capitalists.

"One of the best ways to enhance entrepreneurship is to get all sorts of folks to mix together," says Jonathan Fay, director of Michigan I-Corps.

The Michigan I-Corps will be comprised of approximately 25 teams, each with three members: a principal investigator (or senior executive), entrepreneurial lead (or product manager) and industry mentor. The statewide program will focus on customer discovery and business model generation, but will supplement it with modules on business basics, intellectual property, and entrepreneurship ownership and operations.

"What about your technology has value?" Fay says. "What about your technology do the customers want?"

Source: Jonathan Fay, director of Michigan I-Corps
Writer: Jon Zemke

Backyard Brains insect neuroscience kits can not only be found across the U.S. this year, but also on the other side of the world. The Ann Arbor-base company is now exporting its products to a number of South American countries, thanks to an entrepreneurship program in Chile.

Chile is going through an economic boom thanks to exports of natural resources. The government is using these good times to help spur more entrepreneurship through things like its StartupChile program, which brings in entrepreneurs from around the world to help inspire more business creation. Backyard Brains won one of the start-up grants and used it as a bridge to help spread its product sales to Chile and several other South American countries.

"It's been great," says Tim Marzullo, co-founder of Backyard Brains. "We have actually received another round of funding from the Startup Chile program. We have been going back and forth from Chile for the last year."

Marzullo and his partner Greg Gage, both neuroscientists, started Backyard Brains three years ago as a way to provide a cost-effective product that teaches grade-school students the workings of neurons in the brain. Its Robo Roach allows them to control insects via antennas. Since then the company has expanded to a team of nine and the occasional intern after adding five new positions in the last year.

Backyard Brains initially received a National Institute of Health grant for start-up funding. It is now angling for a second round grant from the National Institute of Health and otherwise using sales of its products to fund its growth. Backyard Brains' products can now be found in all 50 states and on all seven continents after sales from its Chile distribution made it ways to Antarctica.

"We are pretty well-known as the go-to company in the neuroscience equipment field,"  Marzullo says.

Source: Tim Marzullo, co-founder of Backyard Brains
Writer: Jon Zemke

Home-entertainment-start-up iRule is the newest Detroit Venture Partners' portfolio company.

The downtown Detroit-based venture capital firm led a Series B round of investment in iRule worth $1 million. Compuware Ventures, the namesake company's VC arm, made the initial investment in iRule last year in its $500,000 Series A round. The rest of the investors in the Series B round are all local.

"We have some pretty good partners in the area," says Itai Ben-Gal, CEO of iRule.

The 4-year-old company creates an app and accompanying technology that allows users to turn their smartphone into a universal remote for their home theater system. Ben-Gal and Victor Nemirovsky launched the company as a side project from their living rooms in Oakland County. The business quickly created a foothold in the home entertainment center enthusiast community, which garnered the attention of Compuware, a subsequent investment and a move to the tech firm's downtown headquarters.

Thirteen people now work for iRule, which is interviewing for summer interns. The company has hired seven people over the last year, including two software developers this month. The newly expanded team is working to make iRule's core home entertainment center technology even smarter so it can control all electronic facets of a home, such as lights and the thermostat.

"We're creating an interactive solution for everything in your home," Ben-Gal says.

Source: Itai Ben-Gal, CEO of iRule
Writer: Jon Zemke

As the healthcare industry continues to evolve, one Ann Arbor-based company is capitalizing on the trend by staying ahead of the communication curve.

CareEvolution creates software that allows one hospital's data center to speak to another's, facilitating a sharing of electronic medical records and information that streamlines patient care.

"We help hospitals exchange information with one another or doctors with hospitals," Kheterpal says.

That process has become more complicated with new federal regulations in legislation like the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare), prompting companies like CareEvolution to step into the breach.

"Much of what we do has come into sharper focus," says Vik Kheterpal, principal of CareEvolution. "That has fueled our growth."

That growth includes 15 new hires at CareEvolution, bringing the 10-year-old company's staff to 50 employees and a few interns. Kheterpal expects to hire another 15-17 people over the next year. That is being prompted by 60-percent-plus revenue growth.

"We expect to grow faster than that in 2013," Kheterpal says.

Source: Vik Kheterpal, principal of CareEvolution
Writer: Jon Zemke

Bizdom, the entrepreneurial education program, has gotten one of the up-and-coming startups in Cincinnati to relocate to downtown Detroit. The husband-wife-and sister team behind Canopi executed the move to the M@dison Building early this year to become a part of the most recent Bizdom class.

"We decided to pick up and move," says Erin Flynn, president & chief content officer for Canopi. "In a matter of 3-4 weeks we sold our home and moved up here."

Erin Flynn and her husband, Colin, and her sister-in-law, Amy, are the core of the six-person team behind Canopi and now new residents of downtown Detroit. Erin Flynn got her start in 2009 as the creative force behind the fashion blog, RealityChicBlog.com. That inspired her to find better ways to create connections between readers and blogs, which turned into Canopi. The 1-year-old Internet start-up specializes in connecting readers with new blogs and connecting those blogs and readers with brands launching advertising campaigns.

"I saw this triangle between readers, brands and bloggers," Erin Flynn says. "That's where we came up with the idea of Canopi." She describes her job as taking "the work out of finding great blogs."

The Canopi team will spend the next few months going through Bizdom's educational program and building its startups in M@dison Building. Erin Flynn is planning to begin fundraising for a seed capital round later this year.

Source: Erin Flynn, president & chief consultant Canopi
Writer: Jon Zemke

DeepField is planting its flag on West Liberty in downtown Ann Arbor, claiming new office space where it can call the likes of Menlo Innovations, Barracuda Networks, and Google as neighbors.

"It's an incredible pool of talent and energy," says Craig Labovitz, CEO & co-founder of DeepField. "It's incredibly close to the university and the growing pool of tech talent."

The 1-year-old start-up got its start in the Tech Brewery on Ann Arbor's north side. That is where the company has done much of the work to develop software that enables large corporations to adapt to the ever changing world of the Internet's back-end IT infrastructure. It raised $1.6 million in venture capital last year to develop its technology.

DeepField's technology is now deployed in some large companies (Labovitz declined to name which ones) in North America, Europe and South America. "We're seeing a large part of the consumer Internet traffic in the United States," Labovitz says. Naim Falandino, chief data scientist for DeepField, adds, "We are in all segments of the market now."

DeepField recently hired two people, bringing its staff to nearly 15. The growing staff meant it had to sign a two-year lease for a new office space downtown to make room for the new hires. DeepField currently has five job openings and expects to make another 10 hires later this year.

Source: Craig Labovitz, CEO & co-founder of DeepField and Naim Falandino, chief data scientist for DeepField
Writer: Jon Zemke

Campus Commandos has watched its revenue grow five fold, its client base triple and its staff double as the company continues to grow across the U.S.

The advertising agency for college students now has a staff of four people and more than 100 representatives at universities across the U.S. It has hired two people over the last year and now calls the Chrysler House in downtown Detroit home.

Campus Commandos has taken on a number of clients, including eBay and Hewlett Packard. For Hewlett Packard, Campus Commandos helped coordinate its online marketing efforts for calculators. Those efforts helped raise the online sales for the 50G calculator by 60 percent.

"We said, 'What is the only approved cheating tool on a test?' It's a calculator," says Adam Grant, CEO of Campus Commandos. "We can't use a word like cheating with the brand so we used 'personal exam assistant.'"

Grant has been working in the college student advertising arena since he was in college at Michigan State University in the mid-2000s. He went through the Bizdom entrepreneurial curriculum in 2009 and has turned Campus Commandoes into a growing business since then.

Source: Adam Grant, CEO of Campus Commandos
Writer: Jon Zemke

Mobile-app start-up Larky has publicly launched its newest app and is growing its small staff to make it a success.

The downtown Ann Arbor-based company is creating an app that helps consumers maximize their membership perks and loyalty programs. The app alerts them when they are eligible for savings or discounts through things like alumni association memberships.

Many of these reward programs are highly underutilized because of consumer ignorance or forgetfulness of their existence. Larky's technology looks to remind consumers of these perks at the point of purchase. So far, 10 major organizations with access to 50 million consumers have signed on and Larky is looking to lock down a few thousand more in the next few months.

"We built this to be used on a very large scale," says Gregg Hammerman, co-founder of Larky. "We are proud to be based in Michigan and to have Michigan partners, but we want to scale to millions of members."

Larky landed $650,000 in seed capital earlier this year. It has a staff of three full-time employees and another three part-timers. The full-time employees include the company's two co-founders and one Adams Entrepreneur Fellowship Program fellow.

"He has been enormously helpful," Hammerman says. "He has helped us grow a lot."

Source: Gregg Hammerman, co-founder of Larky
Writer: Jon Zemke

When Search Optics went looking for a place to set up shop in the eastern half of the U.S. to take advantage of the automotive Internet marketing space, no place made as much sense as Metro Detroit.

"The people in Detroit are intrinsically tuned to what's going on in the automotive industry," says Christian Fuller, executive vice president of Search Optics. "Everybody bleeds a little oil here."

The San Diego-based company now has more workers in its growing downtown Ferndale office than its west coast home and Toronto satellite office. Search Optics opened its office in downtown Ferndale two years ago and it now has 55 employees and a couple of interns there.

It has hired more than 30 people over the last year, prompting it to expand its space. It currently operates out of the first floor of a loft-style office and is building out the second floor of the building to accommodate its growing staff. Fuller expects the Detroit office to grow to 100 people within the next year.

"In the last year we have almost doubled our business," Fuller says. "We have been absolutely elated with the quality of people who have filled positions here in Detroit."

Source: Christian Fuller, executive vice president of Search Optics
Writer: Jon Zemke