Ann Arbor's VC community looks to student ventures

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 | Source: The Michigan Daily

The future of venture capital in Ann Arbor might not be in the start-ups about to break out into very profitable exits, but in the business students at the University of Michigan.

Excerpt:

Devin Chasanoff, a finance and accounting student at the Ross School of Business, graduated from the University last spring, entering one of the toughest job markets for a college graduate in recent history.

At the University he had studied to become an investment banker and had hoped to get a job right out of college. But after multiple interviews with recruiters from investment banks and consulting firms around the country, and not one offer in sight, he took an unpaid internship in New York City at Maxim Group — the investment banking firm he had interned with the previous summer. While the arrangement mirrored that of many of his B-school friends who were also having trouble lining up permanent jobs, Chasanoff was still disappointed.

"It hurt not to be able to find a job after putting in so much work, going to one of the most prestigious business schools in the country," Chasanoff said.

But just a week into the job, sitting in the company’s Chrysler Building office on the east side of Manhattan, Chasanoff thought of an idea that would pull the New York City native back to Ann Arbor.

Read the rest of the story here.