What's worse is that, of all the (meager) investments done by Michigan-based venture capital firms in the first three quarters of 2001, only 5.9% of those investments were given to Michigan-based companies!
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When trying to bring an innovatoion to market, one of the largest issues is always money. True, there can be design, manufacturing and production issues, too, but those can usually be solved with time and money. And time can be bought.
So how does a fledgling company get money? There's always venture capital, right? Well, yes, if you live in California or Massachusets. Those two states accounted for 54.28% of the U.S.'s annual venture capital investments between 1999-2001. In that time period, Michigan was ranked a distant 22nd in the nation, with only 0.41% of the annual venture capital investments, slightly behind Arizona, which ranked 21st with 0.50%.
What's worse is that, of all the (meager) investments done by Michigan-based venture capital firms in the first three quarters of 2001, only 5.9% of those investments were given to Michigan-based companies! Michigan ranked 30th in in-state investments as percentage of total investments made by state venture capital firms. But, Arizona ranked 5th in that same time period with 57.0% of their VC investments staying in Arizona!
That same article reads, "While Michigan’s venture financing has grown considerably in recent years, the level of seed stage venture capital financing in Michigan is still weak." Its recommendations include to "continue efforts to encourage the development of venture capital and seed funds in Michigan," and to "encourage universities to create early stage funds to promote technology start-ups." In the very near future, I plan to examine how universities such as the University of Michigan present opportunities for their students to navigate their way through the early stages of bringing innovation to market.
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