TechTown
TechTown seeks to become the world's foremost business incubator, leading to an economic renaissance in the city, state and region. It helps create and strengthen a culture of entrepreneurialism in Detroit and Michigan, leading to vigorous and lasting economic growth. It supports the development of emerging companies through sustainable business operations, exemplary programs and services, and a comprehensive infrastructure, all integrated into Detroit's broader economic development goals; and leverages community partnerships required to deliver effective programs and services to emerging companies.
Friday, February 05, 2016
Inventev recently landed a $500,000 federal grant, which represents a large chunk of the
TechTown-based startup's upcoming seed round.
read on…
Friday, November 13, 2015
Five startups that recently graduated from TechTown's 2015 Retail Boot Camp will receive a share of $40,000 to help them make the transition to brick-and-mortar locations.
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Anna Clark / Metromode
Friday, February 20, 2015
Since the 1970s, the city of Southfield stands out among other metro Detroit suburbs as a place that has been both inclusive and economically stable, a rare feat in a fractured metropolis.
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Friday, December 12, 2014
Friday, November 21, 2014
Jon Zemke / Metromode
Friday, April 25, 2014
Metro Detroit has a long history of cultural silos and regional segregation. So how does its tech and entrepreneurial community create opportunites for greater racial and cultural diversity? There's no easy answer but places like Silicon Valley are implementing aggressive and sustained efforts to bridge a divide local business leaders barely acknowledge.
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Friday, December 13, 2013
Friday, December 13, 2013
Friday, December 06, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
Friday, December 21, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Curtis Johnson / Model D
Friday, November 16, 2012
Detroit is home to the third highest concentration of design professionals in the U.S., seemingly attracts entrepreneurs by the minute and has one of the best platforms for turning ideas into companies. Curtis Johnson tells us why TechTown is one of the catalysts for this growth.
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Friday, November 16, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Dennis Archambault / Model D
Friday, December 16, 2011
By most accounts, entrepreneurship is considered the province of the young and tech-savvy. Not so fast, says ex-TechTown exec Randal Charlton. Last month he launched Boom! The New Economy, a start-up oriented toward 50-plus entrepreneurs.
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Friday, December 16, 2011
Friday, December 02, 2011
Friday, December 02, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Tom Hendrickson / Model D
Friday, September 16, 2011
We have spent a lot of time in TechTown over the last few years, documenting the evolution of one of Detroit's key redevelopment catalysts. Dial in to this episode of Model D TV to see what's happening now -- and what's next.
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Richard Retyi / Concentrate
Friday, June 10, 2011
It's not all about angel investing and venture capital at
Concentrate. Some times you've got to focus on the little guy or gal. Which is what Kickstarter does, helping innovative ideas and people to find investment. From food to photography to music and movies, folks in Ann Arbor and Ypsi have used the crowd-sourcing financial service to get their pet projects off the ground.
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Friday, February 18, 2011
Friday, February 04, 2011
Friday, December 17, 2010
Jeff Meyers / Metromode
Friday, December 17, 2010
In the shadow of this past weekend's Big Chill hockey extravaganza, The Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition --an
American Idol-style contest for start-ups-- was held in Ann Arbor. More important than the $1 million in cash and support handed out was the collaboration exhibited by regional business leaders. Is there a new age of cooperation dawning in SE Michigan?
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Friday, December 17, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Friday, December 03, 2010
Friday, December 03, 2010
Friday, December 03, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Jon Zemke / Model D
Friday, November 12, 2010
Arty fashionista Sarah Lapinski's motor is always running. We see this Detroit dynamo wherever we go, her amp usually turned up to 11. She rocks, Jon Zemke rolls it out in this month's Q&A feature.
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Friday, November 05, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Detroit News columnist Laura Berman celebrates the good works and deeds of Sue Mosey, the president of Midtown's University Cultural Center Association. Her universe extends from New Center to Brush Park, where she lights streetlights, builds sidewalks, guides new development projects and serves as a resource for new business owners. She's also earned a reputation as a fundraiser extraordinaire.Excerpt:Over two decades of political change, bankruptcies, market crashes and mayoral scandals, Mosey has kept sight of the ideas that animated her as a Wayne State University grad student: The vision of a city built for people -- walkable, diverse, connecting people and places -- has always been hers. In Detroit, though, visionaries show up and disappear. Mosey has fixed her gaze, and energy, on a particular place over a sweep of time. Instead of making a fuss, she has gotten things done.Read the column
here.
read on…
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Bank of Ann Arbor is now in the
business of building bridges -- well, at least figuratively. That's
thanks to a financing agreement it has recently brokered with
Detroit-based TechTown, creating one more connection between Tree Town
and the Motor City.The downtown Ann Arbor-based bank closed a
10-year loan for an undisclosed amount that will help TechTown build out
its TechTwo small business incubator in Detroit's New Center
neighborhood. The agreement also opens up a channel for Bank of Ann
Arbor to provide financing for the rapidly growing number of startups in
TechTown."How
do we raise the level on collaborating more instead of competing for
resources," says Michael Cole, president of the Technology Banking Group
at Bank of Ann Arbor. "That's already happening with things like the University Research Corridor."Bank of Ann Arbor has a reputation for working with local early stage companies, providing them with seed capital at crucial points, a la Silicon Valley Bank.
Cole's group focuses on the technology and life sciences sector, as
well as the growing population of nano-tech companies. Bank of Ann Arbor
is the only bank in the state that specializes in the tech industry,
like Silicon Valley Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada, where Cole paid his dues earlier in his career."We do a lot of work with early stage companies," Cole says.
Source: Michael Cole, president of the Technology Banking Group at Bank of Ann ArborWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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Model D
Friday, October 08, 2010
Join us Oct. 13 at the Max M. Fisher Center to learn about innovative new initiatives fueling start-ups in Detroit. Mahendra Ramsinghani will talk about the First Step Fund, a unique partnership between Invest Detroit, TechTown and Ann Arbor SPARK to provide financing to emerging small businesses in southeast Michigan. We'll also hear from Brendan Calder, an innovation expert and venture capitalist from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
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Friday, September 24, 2010
The University of Michigan has some big
expectations for the Accelerate Michigan Student Idea Competition, an
offshoot of the inaugural Accelerate Michigan Innovation
Competition."It's a great opportunity for our students and
the state of Michigan," says Doug Neal, managing director of the Center for
Entrepreneurship in U-M's College of Engineering. "I'd love to see
1,000 students participate in Accelerate Michigan."That would
put it on par with U-M's 1,000 Pitches competition, which attracted 2,065
participants in 2009; more are expected this year. Neal says the two
competitions are quite similar because they both require students to
primarily pitch business ideas.The Accelerate Michigan Student
Idea Competition offers three prizes totaling $50,000. Any college
student attending school in the state is eligible. Participants must
submit a one-page business plan, a three-minute video pitch, and
formulate a 15-minute live pitch. The deadline for applications
is October 22. For information, click here.The Accelerate
Michigan Innovation Competition is offering $1 million in prizes to
start-ups in Michigan or planning to move to Michigan. The idea is to
showcase the state's entrepreneurial ecosystem to a large audience of
investors in town for the Big Chill hockey game at Michigan Stadium on
Dec. 11. Source: Doug Neal, managing director of the Center
for Entrepreneurship at the University of MichiganWriter: Jon
Zemke
read on…
Friday, September 24, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
The number of loans from the First Step Fund has now hit double digits and is expected to go higher soon.The TechTown-based microloan fund has made small loans to 10 companies across southeast Michigan. Those companies range from the Jimmy Kicks custom shoe operation in Detroit to Ann Arbor-based grant writing software firm InfoReady. "We
have been thrilled with the quality and quantity of applications," says
Matthew Neagle, an associate with the First Step Fund.Among the other companies to receive loans so far are Clean Emission Fluids (Detroit), Current Motor Company (Ann Arbor), Launch Learning Group (Detroit), Livio Radio (Ferndale), NextCat (Detroit), Air Movement Systems (Detroit), Coliant Corporation, and Bandals (Rochester Hills). More than half a million dollars in loans have gone to these companies over the summer.Invest Detroit, TechTown and Ann Arbor SPARK, which runs the Michigan Micro Loan Fund,
created the First Step Fund earlier this year. The idea is to create a
funding source for local start-ups starving for seed capital. The
current credit crisis has resulted in traditional lending institutions
cutting back on investment capital.Each loan averages about
$50,000 and is either short-term or in the form of a convertible note.
Proceeds are usually used to push forward product development or expand
inventory. Loan recipients are picked by a board independent of
TechTown. Source: Matthew Neagle, an associate with the First Step FundWriter: Jon Zemke
read on…
Friday, September 10, 2010
Detroit's Midtown neighborhood is building
on its past, not tearing it down willy-nilly. It's an economic
development policy that is garnering national attention, and for a good
reason.Excerpt:DETROIT — In sharp contrast to the
rest of the Detroit metropolitan area, an area known as Midtown just
north of the central business district has been holding its own in the
recession.Much of the success of Midtown — as it was branded a
decade ago — is a result of the strength of institutions like Wayne
State University, the Detroit Medical Center, the Henry Ford Hospital
and the Detroit Institute of Arts, all of which contribute students and
employees as well as residents.Another component of Midtown's
success is that its developers are refurbishing older buildings, using
tax credits and public financing, as much as they are building from
scratch."For a long time, there was a big effort to tear things
down in Detroit," said Michael Poris, a principal of the architecture
firm McIntosh Poris Associates, which is restoring a former vaudeville
house in Midtown for multiple uses. "But if we have all these great
historic buildings here, why not take the historic tax credits and reuse
them? Plus it's a greener, more sustainable form of development."According
to the CoStar Group, a real estate information company in Bethesda,
Md., the vacancy rate for office space in Midtown — including an
adjacent area called New Center, where the former headquarters of
General Motors now houses state offices — stood at 8.2 percent in the
second quarter of this year.The vacancy rate in Detroit's
central business district, which at 24.5 million square feet has 3.5
times the space of Midtown, was 19.5 percent in the second quarter of
2010.Read the rest of the story here.
read on…
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Jon Zemke/ Model D
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Real estate agent Austin Black had found success selling the city for other firms, so he decided to strike out on his own with City Living Detroit, his Midtown brokerage. He talks with Model D about the city and opportunities that lay ahead.
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Sunday, September 05, 2010
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Sunday, September 05, 2010