Money continues to flow into into Metro Detroit's venture capital community thanks to the Venture Michigan Fund II, which just made a $15 million investment into the Ann Arbor office of the Venture Investors Early Stage Fund V.
The
Venture Michigan Fund II is a fund of funds, which means it invests in other venture capital firms. It has $120 million to distribute to Michigan-based venture capital firms or VC's with offices in the Great Lakes State, and that money is supposed to be invested in Michigan-based start-ups.
So far, $52 million of that Troy-based fund has been invested into a number of Metro Detroit firms, such as Ann Arbor-based Plymouth Venture Partners. "We have been fairly active in the first 12 months of the program," says Sean O'Donnell, vice president of
Credit Suisse's Michigan Office. "Our pacing is just slightly ahead of the deployment of the fund."
O'Donnell expects the rate of investment to slow down in the near term, but to pick up toward the end of this year. He foresees a third of the original fund to be available by 2013.
The Venture Michigan Fund II launched last year as a sequel to the original $96 million Venture Michigan Fund that came out in 2006. Its most recent $15 million investment in Venture Investors Early Stage Fund V will be directed at investing in start-ups in the life science, clean-tech and other high-tech companies in Michigan.
Source: Sean O'Donnell, vice president of Credit Suisse's Michigan Office
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.