Ann Arborites return to launch Resonant Venture Partners

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 | Source: Concentrate

The University of Michigan's Wolverine Venture Fund is supposed to serve as a real-life proving ground for Ross School of Business students aiming for a career in venture capital. It's now serving as the launching pad for a local venture capital start-up - Resonant Venture Partners.

Two U-M MBA students, Michael Godwin and Jason Townsend, are using their experience with the $5.5 million student-run fund as a primary leg for their new Ann Arbor-based VC firm to stand on. The other leg is the two Michigan natives' entrepreneurial experience in Silicon Valley before they decided to return home and set up their own shop.

"We came back to get our MBAs and enter the venture capital world," says Jason Townsend, partner of Resonant Venture Partners. "There is opportunity to enter the venture capital industry here. On the coasts, the venture funds are being culled."

Resonant Venture Partners recently made its first investment, teaming up with Silicon Valley-based True Ventures to invest $1 million in Ann Arbor-based Scio Security. The VC firm has attracted two top names to its board in EDF Ventures' Mary Campbell and Tom Kinnear, managing director of the Wolverine Venture Fund and head of U-M's Zell Lurie Institute.

Godwin and Townsend have a $10 million fundraising target over the next 18 months. They hope to stay planted in Ann Arbor and have $100 million under management within the next decade. They see a steady pipeline of high-quality start-ups coming from the University of Michigan and its office of Tech Transfer.

"We're hitting the investment trail hard right now," Townsend says.

Source: Jason Townsend, partner, Resonant Venture Partners
Writer: Jon Zemke