Many student-led start-ups competing in this year's Michigan Business Challenge are trending toward to industries this year, food and music.
"There are a lot of companies associated with food, whether its websites or food service," says Sarika Gupta, program manager for the
Michigan Business Challenge. "The other thing I noticed is there are a lot of music-oriented start-ups."
Seventy two start-ups founded by University of Michigan students entered the Michigan Business Challenge, a campus-wide business plan competition with $60,000 in prizes at stake. Twenty one entrepreneurial teams recently made it to the second round. Some of those start-ups include:
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myFab5, a mobile-technology start-up that has come up with an innovated for users to find and share restaurants while helping businesses to improve their marketing and sales operations.
- Kymeria, the winner of the student competition portion of Accelerate Michigan is developing a new chemistry for ceramics, which brings the benefits of existing advanced ceramics to new parts and markets.
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Exo Dynamics, a TechArb start-up creating an electromechanically activated back brace that can move with the wearer and maintain support through a variety of postures.
The winner of the competition, organized by the Ross School of Business'
Zell-Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, will take home a $20,000 in seed capital. The runner-up wins $10,000 and smaller cash prizes will go to array of other placers.
"We're trying to entrepreneurship here by helping more team," Gupta says. "We're helping more students entrepreneurship."
Source: Sarika Gupta, program manager for the Michigan Business Challenge
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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