Statewide Pre-Seed Fund Awarded $6.8 Million from 21st Century Jobs Fund
Fund will support technology-based start-up companies

Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today announced that the Strategic Economic Investment and Commercialization board (SEIC) has awarded $6.8 million from the 21st Century Jobs Fund to capitalize a statewide pre-seed fund. The fund is a collaborative effort between Ann Arbor SPARK, Automation Alley and the West Michigan Science & Technology Initiative.

Young people are leaving based on a perception that Michigan is an “old economy,” a dying state. I know of some who are going to places such as Chicago or Dallas and taking jobs below the level of their state-subsidized college education, thinking that if something is going to happen for me, it’s more likely to happen there than in Michigan. Yet we have employers here clamoring for engineering, financial and IT talent. Importing it, even. These are not traditional big-company Michigan employers with "golden handcuffs" but smaller startups, a few hundred employees.

Don't believe it? Go to the Great Lakes IT Report or Metromode.com and check out the steady stream of "knowledge economy" businesses in Michigan that are growing and hiring. Just this week, for example, Metromode told the tale of Pillar Technology, a Michigan software and consulting firm that recently added 70 jobs and seeks to add more.