Michigan Angel Fund is hitting some significant milestones over the last year with even bigger ambitions for 2016.
The Ann Arbor-based angel investor group has 100 members between its two investment funds. It finished 2015 by sending out $2.91 million in investments, of which $1.5 million was made in the fourth quarter of last year.
Among its investments include leading a $750,000 Series A in Detroit-based
BoostUp, a first-of-its-kind social savings platform that helps people save for a down payment on their next car or home purchase. The Michigan Angel Fund also participated in angel rounds for Romulus-based
Eco-Fueling, Detroit-based
FoodJunky.com, and Ann Arbor-based
Genomenon.
"We can do a couple more deals," says Skip Simms, managing member of
Michigan Angel Fund. "We expect to be closing on them in the first quarter of this year."
The Michigan Angel Fund has raised two investment funds worth more than $4 million. Simms plans to begin raising a third fund within a few months.
The Michigan Angel Fund invests between $250,000 and $2,000,000 in early stage startups with an ability to scale their growth that are based in Michigan. As many as 400 startups apply for funding Michigan Angel Fund each year. About 80 percent of them come from Michigan-based business accelerators and the other 20 percent are through referrals and startups reaching out to the fund.
"Every one of the companies that we have invested in have benefited from services provided by local tech accelerators," Simms says.
Source: Skip Simms, managing member of the Michigan Angel Fund
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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