The University of Michigan's Michigan Investment in New Technology Startups program, commonly known as MINTS, has made its first investment in Crossbar.
The $25 million program aims to invest in start-ups utilizing technology spun out of the university. The start-ups must be venture backed. In Crossbar's case, it is a portfolio company of Silicon Valley-based Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Artiman Ventures and Northern Light Venture Capital.
"It's definitely a big boost," says
Wei Lu, co-founder of
Crossbar and an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. "Any funding is important because it's not easy to raise funds for a start-up right now."
Crossbar, which now calls Silicon Valley home, spun out of U-M in 2010 and is developing an advanced memory technology that could write 1,000 times faster than Flash. Specifically it is creating a new nonvolatile memory technology that will offer unprecedented density and power improvements in electronics.
Lu declined to disclose how much the investment from U-M's MINTS program is worth. "They asked us to not disclose it because they are in talks with several other start-ups," Lu says.
Source: Wei Lu, co-founder of Crossbar
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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