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Team posters, banners and other Michigan basketball memorabilia provide a colorful theme for the decor of Anne Perigo’s office at the Ross School of Business. It is perhaps not too surprising that an Ann Arbor native who graduated from Pioneer High and has a BBA from the University would be an enthusiastic fan of the hoops team and of both departing coach Beilein and incoming coach Howard.

As Associate Director of the Zell Lurie Institute, Perigo is responsible for several non-curricular programs at the business school that promote entrepreneurial activity among students, including the Michigan Business Challenge and the Michigan Investment Challenge. “I love my job,” Perigo says, citing her “great

Four startup founders gave fascinating presentations at the July edition of New Enterprise Forum but is was Raeanna Lewarne of HealthFreelance.com who took home the prize. Judges praised her very thorough and confident presentation of her business plan for a website that connects medical and non-medical healthcare professionals with hospitals and other employers for contract work.

The judging panel included Kim Brown of Duo Security, Ashwin Puri of Invest Detroit Ventures, and Paul Riser Jr. of Techtown Detroit.

The enthusiastic audience gathered at Ann Arbor Spark on Thursday evening opened up their wallets and tossed over $300 into the prize money bucket.

Workit Health announced this month that it has been awarded grant funding through the Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) Access Points Project, managed by the Center at Sierra Health Foundation. This funding will be used to expand Workit’s digital medication-assisted treatment program in California, and launch pilot partnerships with emergency departments in key California counties.

“Workit Health’s digital opioid use disorder program allows us to go quickly into the communities lacking evidence-based care, and plug-in where needed with emergency departments and health care providers,” Lisa McLaughlin,

University of Michigan startup InheRET Inc. has launched an online program that helps identify patients at risk for hereditary cancers without a visit to the doctor. InheRET’s cancer risk evaluation program was tested in a pilot at Michigan Medicine where more than 500 patients have completed the health history form. The program is now available to the general public and to health care facilities on a subscription basis.

InheRET Founder Dr. David Keren was the Showcase Presenter at the January 2019 New Enterprise Forum. Dr. Keren is enthusiastic about the help he got from the NEF coaching process. “It dramatically improved our focus and our pitch,” he wrote recently.

The company has made great strides since that January presentation. “It’s

Invest Detroit Ventures (ID Ventures) recently announced that it has received significant philanthropic support to begin the effort to turn its First Capital Fund into a sustainable, evergreen fund that will support early-stage Michigan startups for years to come. With $3 million from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, $2.5 million from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC), and $11 million in assets funded to date, ID Ventures kicks off a fund-raising effort to pool enough philanthropic support to create a sustainable source of early capital for Michigan’s diverse, under-represented entrepreneurs and technology start-ups committed to bolstering the local economy.

Patti Glaza, an NEF Board Member and senior vice president and managing director at Invest Detroit

After more than thirty years in a very successful career as an ad man and business executive, David Maas is giving back. This Michigan native, car fanatic, and Wolverine fan now makes time to volunteer with the New Enterprise Forum and other organizations to help foster entrepreneurship in the Detroit and Ann Arbor areas. After hearing about the business coaching organization from several colleagues, David started attending NEF meetings in 2018 and found himself in easy conversation with a welcoming group of interesting people. Over the past several months he has thrown himself into NEF’s signature coaching process, working with a team of volunteer coaches to help a local entrepreneur refine his investor pitch. “I like the well-defined process,” explains David,

The 38th annual Midwest Growth Capital Symposium took place over two days in May 2019 and featured a number of companies who had completed the NEF coaching process and had previous experience as Showcase presenters at the New Enterprise Forum. MGCS is the longest running university-based venture fair of its kind. The MGCS company showcase this year featured 33 Midwest companies that are seeking seed, series A, and series B rounds of funding. More than 400 attendees were expected, comprising early-stage companies that span the Life Sciences and Technology sectors, angel investors, venture capitalists and technology transfer professionals from several dozen top-ranked Midwest Universities.  

Presenting companies that were

Advaita Bioinformatics, provider of the industry-leading gene expression and genomic variation analysis platform, recently announced a new partnership with Millennium Science for distribution of Advaita’s software to research institutions and pharma companies across Australia and New Zealand. Millennium Science is replacing Qiagen’s Ingenuity products with iPathwayGuide and iVariantGuide products for all pathway and variant analysis. The deal is a three-year commitment. Millennium Science is converting its current clients to Advaita products and selling new cloud-based subscriptions to new customers immediately. For more information visit Advaita’s 

Spellbound Founder and CEO Christina York says, “You are never done working on your pitch.” York was a Showcase Presenter at the May 2017 New Enterprise Forum and has been pitching practically every day since then.

In a video recently distributed by the Michigan Economic Development Council, the NEF alum shares this takeaway and other advice for startup entrepreneurs. York’s other tips address maximizing the use of local and state resources in the early stages of company growth, and avoiding pitfalls related to company culture.

For more tips, read the article on the MEDC

Ann Arbor SPARK recently recognized Groundspeed Analytics as its 2019 Entrepreneurial Services Company of the Year Award Winner. This was just the latest of many awards for this fast growing startup. Just a year ago, the New Enterprise Forum presented Groundspeed Founder and Co-CEO Jeff Mason with its 2017 NEF Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Formed in early 2016, this innovative InsurTech company utilizes machine learning to transform unstructured commercial insurance documents into actionable intelligence. By making the process more accurate and efficient, insurance carriers and brokers now have a game-changing tool to advance their information

A communal breakfast of waffles and bacon to kickoff casual Friday is just one of the many pluses of the new co-working space where April Davis now operates her Breakout Marketing Group, a consulting firm she founded 20 years ago. April enjoys the opportunities to chat with other professionals in the office while she works hard on developing her own marketing services business, focused on optimizing social media and customer engagement. Recently she treated a visitor to a fine cup of cold brew coffee while seated at her desk overlooking the Briarwood neighborhood in Ann Arbor.

In 2013, when Sean Li left his home in Beijing to go abroad for the first time, he chose to enroll in the University of Michigan to study Statistics and Business, recognizing the world class educational resources here. In 2017, when TusStar, one of the largest providers of incubation services in China, wanted to establish a U.S. presence, it chose Ann Arbor as its first location because it recognized the “vast potential of the startup ecosystem here.” Today, Sean Li is Manager of TusStar’s Ann Arbor office, working under Frank Ni, President, at their Green Road location.

Alchemie, a Michigan-based educational technology startup, has won another round of funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop 3D and augmented reality (AR) learning tools for teaching general chemistry. Alchemie CEO Julia Winter was a showcase presenter at the New Enterpise Forum in May 2016. Recently Alchemie has been testing an AR tool called ModelAR at the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Georgia Tech, and the University of Washington in preparation for an April launch. In addition to NSF support, Alchemie has raised a total of $770,000 from angel and venture funds, including Invest Michigan, Belle Impact Fund, and BlueWater Angels.

Read more on

Jeff Mason, Founder and Co-CEO of Groundspeed and former NEF client

Groundspeed has been recognized as the 2019 “SmartZone Best Small Business” of the year, an awards program presented by Michigan Celebrates Small Business. Groundspeed will be honored at an awards ceremony during the fifteenth annual Michigan Celebrates Small Business gala event, May 8, 2019 in Lansing, Mich.

Read more on the Groundspeed website.

Coffee is important and David Whitinger likes to brag that Office Evolution has some of the best in town. As co-owner of the new office space for entrepreneurs that opened in Ann Arbor in late 2018, David is eager to show off the attractively furnished facility and offered a welcome cup of coffee to a visitor who stepped in from the frozen February air. Like other franchise locations around the country, the Office Evolution space on Eisenhower Parkway combines several private offices with shared areas such as conference rooms, reception desk, and kitchen.

David joined the New Enterprise Forum as a stakeholder in 2018 while he was launching his new business. At NEF events he found the other members were accomplished and successful in their fields but were at the same time very