An Ann Arbor-based venture capitalist is helping connect Metro Detroit's emerging investment community with the rest of the world by opening the Detroit chapter of TiE called TiE Detroit Angels.
Sonali Vijayavargiya is the managing partner of
Augment Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that launched out of Ann Arbor last year. She is now chairing TiE Detroit Angels as a way of growing the region's investment community and connecting it with opportunities around the world. TiE Detroit Angels will focus on investing in a broad range of promising start-ups.
"This group is made up of a diverse group of people," Vijayavargiya says. "We have physicians and entrepreneurs. We will invest across sectors."
TiE is a global, not-for-profit, non-political, and non-religious organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurs around the world. When TiE first started it stood for The Indus Entrepreneurs, which signifies the ethnic South Asian or Indus roots of the founders. Today TiE stands for Talent, Ideas and Enterprise.
TiD Detroit Angels will focus on forming an investment consortium of wealthy individuals willing to provide seed capital to promising startups in Metro Detroit. The group expects to grow to a size of about 30 members within its first year and will look at the pitches from dozens of local startups from a number of different sectors.
Source: Sonali Vijayavargiya, chair of TiE Detroit
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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