Stage of Investment: Idea/Pre-Seed

Since 2006, The Starting Block has served as West Michigan’s nonprofit regional kitchen incubator and entrepreneurial center. As a shared-use facility, it helps entrepreneurs start their food-related businesses at reasonable rentals without the initial investment in costly facilities and equipment. The Starting Block offers low-cost kitchen rental, refrigerated, frozen, and dry storage, warehouse space, and […]

The Michigan Small Business Development Center (SBDC) enhances Michigan’s economic well-being by providing counseling, financial prep, training, secondary market research, and technology commercialization services to new and existing small businesses and advanced technology companies. With 11 offices statewide, the SBDC positively impacts the economy by strengthening existing companies, creating new jobs, retaining existing jobs, and […]

The NSF Applied Research Center (ARC) is NSF International’s research and development arm, providing custom R&D services to academia, industry, and government. Services include proof-of-concept testing, method development, product validation/commercialization, next generation sequencing, clinical health services, toxicology, and risk assessment. The ARC furthers NSF’s mission of public health and safety by supporting scientific innovation and […]

The New Economy Initiative (NEI) is the largest philanthropy-led economic development initiative in the U.S. working to build a regional network of support for entrepreneurs and small businesses. NEI makes grants (over $150 million since 2008) to entrepreneurial service providers that are helping all types of businesses grow and thrive in metro Detroit. Equity and […]

The D-NewTech (DNT) is an organization that provides resources and networking opportunities for the Detroit and Southeast Michigan startup community. DNT hosts monthly meetup events that encourage and highlight the entrepreneurship startups in the region. In addition, DNT collaborates with other organizations to provide meaningful events that support entrepreneurs including Detroit Startup Week and Detroit […]

CMURC is a leader in advancing economic development in the Great Lakes Bay Region by leveraging the resources of Central Michigan University, the Mt. Pleasant SmartZone and its local, regional and State-wide partners to accelerate the success of entrepreneurs, growing businesses and jobs.

In 2014, investors pumped $6.5 billion into 459 health technology startups across the United States, many of which originated at hackathons. Traditionally a hackathon is where a large group coders come together to collaborate to create usable software or ideas. A2 Health Hacks turns this idea on its head and brings together hackers, makers, entrepreneurs, […]

ACRE AgTech, a non-profit corporation, specializes in providing ag-tech connections, resources, and expertise to help entities commercialize their ag-tech innovations.

BioArbor, an entirely volunteer-run organization, hosts educational networking events for the life sciences industry in the greater Ann Arbor area. BioArbor events explore technology commercialization (product, device, and service), financing strategies, business development, regulatory affairs, marketing, and other topics useful to life science entrepreneurs. Each event, held six times per year, features a networking session, […]

The Economic Development Alliance (EDA) of St. Clair County is a regional non-profit economic development agency that has served the Blue Water Area for over 60 years. The EDA is supported by public and private sector investors and works closely with community stakeholders and regional partners to stimulate the economy and drive job growth and […]