“The startup, founded in 2009 and incubated at the Ann Arbor SPARK program, is talking with potential customers in the auto space and is looking to begin a pilot program in the coming months. The company received a loan earlier this year through the Michigan Microloan Fund Program at Spark, and is starting to talk to seed and angel investors, Murphy says. Buycentives didn’t disclose the exact size of its loan, but in February Spark announced it had given a loan worth a total of $95,000 to Buycentives and two other area startups. Individual loans through the program range $10,000 to $50,000.”

We’re excited about Buycentives’ continued success and look forward to reading more about the company as it continues to grow in the Ann Arbor region!

There are two significant changes affecting distribution of this new money.  One is the match for an investment is lowered to one-half to one.  In other words to ask for a $200,000 investment from the fund a company only needs $100,000 of matching investment from others. 

The other big change is that a portion of the fund will go toward a newly created micro loan program.  About $1 million will be available in loans ranging in size from $10,000 to $50,000 for companies not quite in the pre-seed stage.  No match is required. 

Details about the fund and the new loan program will be presented at a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday, May 5) at noon at SPARK Central (330 E. Liberty, Ann Arbor).  Skip Simms, Manager of the fund, and Tom Anderson with Automation Alley, one of two collaborators reviewing loan applications, will make the presentation.  Information about the fund is also available on-line at www.annarborusa.org/start-ups/pre-seed-fund/ .

What they did discuss was how to handle the available $6.7 million that isn’t getting claimed from the most recent round of competition. Two more companies, Avidimer Therapeutics and Accuri Cytometers joined Cielo Med Solutions in not agreeing or unable to take the loans awarded. So the next two companies that had a tie score that just missed the cut are now eligible to step up and accept an award. Fisher Coach and Incept Biosystems are now going through due diligence and will probably sign notes totaling $3.875 million.
So what to do with the remaining $2,849,916. They can’t go to the companies with the next best scores. There are four of them and their combined ask is over $7 million. There was concensus that dividing the dollars up evenly among the four was not a good idea. What they did was ask the MEDC staff to do some investigation of the circumstances of those four companies today versus when they originally applied, nearly nine months ago.

One other action item on the agenda was the approval of the RFP for a $6.8 million award to a pre-seed fund. Applications will be due in February and the award in April.

Hopefully there will be a 2009 competition and it will come soon. Stay tuned.

SEIC Board and 21CJF Competition
Minutes and meeting dates for SEIC and info about 21CJF

Accuri Cytometers
website for Accuri

Ciello Med Solutions
web site for Cielo

Fisher Coachworks
website for Fisher Coachworks

Avidimer Therapeutics
website for Avidimer

Incept Biosystems
website for Incept Bio

The MEDC isn’t prepared to present the applicants for Company Formation Fund loans this month.  They are still trying to catch up processing the loans approved last month.

You will recall the program was opened the first of November.  A rush of about 30 companies was processed and about 25 were approved for loans totalling more than $4 million by the MSF Board on Nov. 28.  Now all the paperwork needs to be done.

The companies that applied and were ready for submission in December will have to wait until the first group of companies are taken care of and money dispursed. The MSF Board meets on January 23.

We will also have more companies teed up to be included for January approval. I doubt there will be any funds left in the program after January.

Skip Simms

The Michigan Strategic Fund Board approved loans totaling $1.5 million to five Ann Arbor SPARK sponsored companies through the Company Formation and Growth Fund.  This is the fund created recently to provide low interest loans to life science companies hiring Pfizer employees losing their jobs in ’07 and ’08.  This is a significant effort to keep highly educated and talented people in Michigan to start-up their own companies or help accelerate existing companies in our growing life science community.

If you see them, congratulate Bruce Markham of Phrixus Pharmaceuticals; Dan Ross starting up TransPharm Preclinical with Michael Dority; Shawn Marcell and David and Kris Kurnit’s growing company Sensigen; U of M Prof Gary Glick starting up Lycera; and Steve Duddy and his group of Pfizer alum starting up Integrated Nonclinical Development Solutions.

Another group of Pfizer alum have applied for a loan through this program and will be considered at the next MSF meeting on December 19.

Check out our web site for all the information about the program including the application form.

Skip Simms
Ann Arbor SPARK
skip@AnnArborUSA.org
O – 734-821-0072
C – 734-646-3173