Entrepreneur awards and VC program features SPARK’s Amy Cell

From Crain’s Detroit Business Nov. 11, 2009; “The seven winners joined about 140 attendees this morning at a networking breakfast followed by peer-to-peer strategy sessions. Chris Rizik, president and CEO of the Renaissance Venture Capital Fund, presented a session on pitching to venture capitalists and angel investors with Amy Cell, vice president of Ann Arbor Spark. It’s important to understand the role of venture capital, Rizik... [Read More...]

Michigan Pre-Seed Capital fund recipient Limo-Reid pays back $750,000, plus interest, to 3 investors

As reported by Tom Henderson, Crain’s Detroit Business September 30, 2009 Ann Arbor Spark, as well as two other community-development organizations, have been repaid with interest for early support of a Deerfield-based company that hopes to revolutionize transmission systems for trucks and military vehicles.Limo-Reid Inc. has paid back $250,000, plus interest, that Spark loaned to the company as part of the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund... [Read More...]

Crain’s identifies SPARK as “scratching the entrepreneurial itch”

From Crain’s cover’s Washtenaw/Livingston …Goldschmidt is one of the nearly 70 new startups that have begun working with Ann Arbor Spark this year, a roughly 25 percent increase from the same period in 2008, according to Skip Simms, director of business acceleration services at Spark. Much of the spike is driven by an increased awareness of the resources available to Ann Arbor’s entrepreneurial community and an increase in... [Read More...]