Michigan Startups to Pitch For Ann Arbor SPARK Incubator Space

Business incubator Ann Arbor SPARK is asking Michigan startups to take their best shots at five open spots in a business pitch competition it plans to host on June 4, the group announced today.

The winner will get up to $50,000 in business acceleration services and a one-year incubator lease at SPARK East in Ypsilanti, MI. The competition is co-sponsored by the Eastside Innovation Campus (EIC), which hosts small businesses.

“The EIC collaboration is helping to expand the region’s entrepreneurial success by delivering critical services to startups,” Michael A. Finney, CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK, said in a prepared statement. “The pitch competition is a celebration of that success to date and signifies a continued commitment by SPARK East and its partners to growing startup businesses.”

The event will showcase five “innovation-based entrepreneurs” who will have three minutes each to pitch a panel of judges who are “noted funding and business experts,” the group said. The winner has to set up shop at the SPARK East business incubator. Applications are due by close of business May 14 and finalists will be notified by May 21.

An online application is available here. Those who want to attend the free event can register here.

Author: Howard Lovy

Howard Lovy is a veteran journalist who has focused primarily on technology, science and innovation during the past decade. In 2001, he helped launch Small Times Magazine, a nanotech publication based in Ann Arbor, MI, where he built the freelance team and worked closely with writers to set the tone and style for an emerging sector that had never before been covered from a business perspective. Lovy's work at Small Times, and on one of the first nanotechnology-themed blogs, helped him earn a reputation for making complex subjects understandable, interesting, and even entertaining for a broad audience. It also earned him the 2004 Prize in Communication from the Foresight Institute, a nanotech think tank. In his freelance work, Lovy covers nanotechnology in addition to technological innovation in Michigan with an emphasis on efforts to survive and retool in the state's post-automotive age. Lovy's work has appeared in many publications, including Wired News, Salon.com, the Wall Street Journal, The Detroit News, The Scientist, the Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report, Michigan Messenger, and the Ann Arbor Chronicle.