Built in Chicago reports this week that it has been another busy month for the windy city’s tech scene, with executive hires, acquisitions and several fundraising rounds. Reverb hired Bradford Shellhammer, former vice president of eBay, as chief product officer. Codeverse was acquired by Nerdy. And two startups closed multi-million-dollar funding rounds to expand production…
Ann Arbor’s TreeTown Tech has created a modeling program for prototyping products using a variety of 3D printing technologies. “Like flying cars and jet packs, 3D printing used to sound like something out of a futuristic sci-fi novel. But the advent and spread of this incredible technology have been a boon to the prototyping industry,”…
Michigan is a flyover state no longer. Even in the midst of a pandemic that shut down swaths of business, venture capital was still at work. Why should the average person or even tech worker care about money that doesn’t end up in their pocket? Venture capital doesn’t just enable new businesses to get up and running instead of having to move to other states where funding is easier to find. It also attracts investment dollars to the state. The Michigan Venture Capital Association says that for every $1 invested by venture capital in the state, $42.87 is attracted from investment outside of Michigan. That’s big news.
We’ve been busy lately, as the content marketing side of Cronicle has taken off. It’s still small, but we need help writing for Cronicle and for various content marketing clients who have hired us to write blogs for tech companies in the Michigan region.
Looking for a career shift or boost in your tech career? Google’s Grow With Google program is offering professional training and certifications in tech skills that are extremely affordable, or, with a new program designed for rural northwest Michigan, completely free. The program is used for finding entry level workers in tech by Wells Fargo, SiriusXM, Salesforce, Ford, Verizon and Crate & Barrel.
NASA just unveiled the first image captured by the Webb Space Telescope on Monday from billions of light years in the past. This morning at 10:30 ET, more photos will be revealed, and you can watch the reveal from the Webb Space Telescope live on Youtube from the NASA TV feed live from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The New Enterprise is hosting another NEF Pitch Pit July 14, at SPARK Central in Ann Arbor, MI.
The University of Michigan is partnering with Facebook parent company Meta to build a social media data archive. The project intends to make the aggregated data useful to social scientists studying the impact of social media on society.
Columbus insurtech startup Branch has achieved unicorn status with a total valuation of $1.05 billion with its Series C raise of $147 million this month. The round was led by Weatherford Capital, and brings Branch into the growing ranks of Midwest tech unicorns. Branch is a full-stack insurance company that uses data, technology and automation to make home and auto insurance more efficient. Participating new and existing investors included Acrew, AmFam Ventures, Anthemis, Gaingels, Greycroft, HSCM Ventures, Narya, SignalFire, and Tower IV.
Evergreen Climate Innovation’s 501vc Investment Fund now invests $200k – $300k in early-stage climate tech startups in the Greater Midwest. This climate tech-focused investment fund is looking to support climate startups specifically in the tech space that are headquartered in places like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and the surrounding states, a location that is historically under-funded for climate tech.
