The 2021 MVCA Research Report has just been released, with more details available than our recent interview with Executive Director Ara Topouzian. The 2021 MVCA Research Report shows that 88 Michigan startups received more than $257 million in venture capital investment in 2020. The report estimates that an additional $1.2 billion of venture capital will be required to adequately fund the growth of Michigan’s 165 startup companies in the next two years.
That’s right, it’s already been another month of Blursdays, so it’s already time for another Traverse City Pitch Night with TCNewTech. Pitch Night is virtual again, so check out the end of this post for login info for the free event that starts at 6 pm tonight. Here’s the lineup of the latest startups coming out of northern Michigan.
Traverse City’s 20Fathoms just announced its new HealthSpark Accelerator for digital and telehealth startups, to be held virtually starting April 12, 2021, running through June 30. Preference is given to Michigan companies, but the cohort is not restricted to Michigan only so the virtual format means this could be a great opportunity for a startup from any location. “HealthSpark is a 12-week high-intensity program,” 20Fathoms Executive Director Lauren Bigelow tells Cronicle. “We have pulled experts from across the country who are both leaders and practitioners,” she says, so that startup founders gain experience and can network with leaders in their space who know what it is to build a digital or telehealth startup on the ground.
Have a new startup in mobility, sustainable energy, or tech that you would like to pitch? Ann Arbor SPARK has just announced a number of opportunities for startups, particularly in the mobility space, to get their name out and find funding. Here are some new announcements of opportunities for Michigan startups from Komal Doshi, Director of Mobility Programs at Ann Arbor SPARK, Ann Arbor’s premier business support organization for tech startups.
Ann Arbor security startup Censys has hired Duo West sales veteran Will Saso of San Jose, CA, to head up its worldwide sales. We take this as a positive sign that security startups in Ann Arbor are able to draw in top hires from Silicon Valley, if still not outside their Duo network of talent.
Combining a shift to electric vehicles over the next decades and paying to offset emissions, General Motors announced yesterday a plan to finally put internal combustion engines and their climate-altering pollution in the rearview within 2 decades. Historically, GM is not known for quick corporate change or for prioritizing the planet over shareholder value, but the writing has been on the wall now for over a decade between government regulations and urgent climate change priorities shifting how consumers aim to purchase next vehicles. GM has worked for a number of years to retrofit older vehicle designs with hybrid and electric options, and recently put nearly all of its R&D budget into designing electric vehicles from the ground up, signaling a serious commitment to EVs. Currently, electric vehicle sales are in the single digits percentage-wise of vehicles sold, but rising quickly as more practical options become available and rapid charging becomes viable for the average consumer.
University of Michigan game development professor Austin Yarger is a favorite on Cronicle Press, for introducing our readers to new indie games and AR/VR tech coming out locally. Yarger recently completed his project to turn a list of 60+ gaming studios in Michigan into a database, and we want to share it with you. The website is MichiganGameStudios.com.
It was a tough year, that needs no emphasizing, except to say we extend our heartfelt sympathies to anyone who lost a loved one from COVID-19 this year, or from any number of other dangers that tangled up to make 2020 one of the most challenging years on record. At Cronicle Press Tech News, we were just kicking off our first full year of reporting on tech and startup news from Michigan and Midwest tech industries, and the uncertainty for us as a fledgling blog and for the companies we were reporting on was unprecedented.
Tonight is the monthly TCNewTech pitch event up in Traverse City, now online for the short term due to coronavirus. Starting at 6 pm, you can log in to see pitches from new startups in the northern Michigan region. You can register here to attend TCNewTech. All NewTech events are free.
Cybersecurity startup Censys, which offers visibility and risk assessment of businesses’ constantly evolving security vulnerabilities, recently announced that it has hired Derek Abdine as CTO, who will head up technical strategy and innovation. Abdine brings 15 years of work in security industry leadership to the role, as well as experience as an industry evangelist.
