Startup News

Home-entertainment-start-up iRule is the newest Detroit Venture Partners' portfolio company.

The downtown Detroit-based venture capital firm led a Series B round of investment in iRule worth $1 million. Compuware Ventures, the namesake company's VC arm, made the initial investment in iRule last year in its $500,000 Series A round. The rest of the investors in the Series B round are all local.

"We have some pretty good partners in the area," says Itai Ben-Gal, CEO of iRule.

The 4-year-old company creates an app and accompanying technology that allows users to turn their smartphone into a universal remote for their home theater system. Ben-Gal and Victor Nemirovsky launched the company as a side project from their living rooms in Oakland County. The business quickly created a foothold in the home entertainment center enthusiast community, which garnered the attention of Compuware, a subsequent investment and a move to the tech firm's downtown headquarters.

Thirteen people now work for iRule, which is interviewing for summer interns. The company has hired seven people over the last year, including two software developers this month. The newly expanded team is working to make iRule's core home entertainment center technology even smarter so it can control all electronic facets of a home, such as lights and the thermostat.

"We're creating an interactive solution for everything in your home," Ben-Gal says.

Source: Itai Ben-Gal, CEO of iRule
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Campus Commandos has watched its revenue grow five fold, its client base triple and its staff double as the company continues to grow across the U.S.

The advertising agency for college students now has a staff of four people and more than 100 representatives at universities across the U.S. It has hired two people over the last year and now calls the Chrysler House in downtown Detroit home.

Campus Commandos has taken on a number of clients, including eBay and Hewlett Packard. For Hewlett Packard, Campus Commandos helped coordinate its online marketing efforts for calculators. Those efforts helped raise the online sales for the 50G calculator by 60 percent.

"We said, 'What is the only approved cheating tool on a test?' It's a calculator," says Adam Grant, CEO of Campus Commandos. "We can't use a word like cheating with the brand so we used 'personal exam assistant.'"

Grant has been working in the college student advertising arena since he was in college at Michigan State University in the mid-2000s. He went through the Bizdom entrepreneurial curriculum in 2009 and has turned Campus Commandoes into a growing business since then.

Source: Adam Grant, CEO of Campus Commandos
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

RAM Construction Services is opening a new office in downtown Detroit which is expected to help augment the construction firm's growing workload in the Motor City's Central Business District.

"There are just so many opportunities in Detroit," says Erica Mazur, project manager for RAM Construction Services. "It's great to be able to walk down the street and see the condition of the city improving. We love our role in it."

The Livonia-based, founded in 1918, was known as Western Waterproofing for many years until 2008 when it rebranded to RAM Construction Services. It has worked on a number of marquee projects downtown, including doing exterior work on the Book Cadillac Hotel, annual maintenance work on the Renaissance Center, and some interior work in the Chrysler Building.

RAM Construction Service employs about 200 employees and three interns in Michigan after hiring 10 people over the last year. The new office in the Chrysler Building will house six people. Mazur expects construction to begin this month and be finished in time for the Detroit Tigers Opening Day game in early April.

Source: Erica Mazur, project manager for RAM Construction Services
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Detroit Farm and Garden is gearing up for its second growing season in Southwest Detroit.

The landscaping supply company is looking to hire two new people in time for the spring season, including a sales associate and a delivery driver. The hires will bring the company's staff to five people and allow it to capitalize on the goodwill it has earned in its first year of business.

"It went really well," says Jeff Klein, co-owner of Detroit Farm and Garden. "We have gotten a great response from the community. People are really glad we're here."

Klein and his partner, Andy Ray, launched Detroit Farm and Garden last spring to help fill the need for providing supplies to local landscaping professionals and urban farmers. They opened in a former police station off West Vernor Avenue in the shadow of the Michigan Central Station and have turned the space into a hub for the local community, selling top spoil and seeds in the summer and holding community concerts in the winter.

Detroit Farm and Garden has also expanded the products it offers to include tools and products from Reclaim Detroit, such as planter boxes. "Our inventory is continuing to grow," Klein says. "We want to get more into season-extending products, such as the plastic used for green houses."

Source: Jeff Klein, co-owner of Detroit Farm and Garden
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

A Styrofoam-recycling business called Styrecycle is opening its doors in Hamtramck this month, making a hard-to-find green business easily accessible to Metro Detroiters.

At first Styrecycle will specialize in recycling Styrofoam products, employing a team of about half a dozen people at its facility at 3901 Christopher St. The 3-month-old company expects to extend its reach to other hard-to-recycle products this year, a move that could mean expanding its workforce to two shifts that employ a dozen people.

"We're going to build this into a recycling center for problematic things in the waste stream, like Styrofoam and plastic bags and packaging material," says Mark Haron, director of Styrecycle. "We're looking at recycling tires by the end of the year."

What to do with Styrofoam, also known as polystyrene foam, is one of the big issues for the waste-stream industry. It is not biodegradable and expands when it comes in contact with water. That means it can take up an increasing amount of space in a landfill and can be lethal to animals that consume it by choking them or blocking their digestive systems.

Polystyrene foam products (think Styrofoam cups or packaging foam) are hard to recycle because they are often as light as they are bulky, making the economics of storing and transporting the material difficult. That's why polystyrene foam products aren't normally a part of curbside recycling programs and there are only a small number drop off recycling centers in Michigan that accept Styrofoam. Haron believes Styrecycle is the first polystyrene-foam-specific-recycling business in Metro Detroit and one of only about a dozen he can find in the U.S.

Haron has worked in the waste-stream business in Hamtramck for 25 years, operating everything from a scrap yard to machine-recycling companies on the city's south side. Styrecyle is now accepting clean, industrial- and commercial-grade, polystyrene-foam products from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. He expects to expand to all sorts of clean Styrofoam products (no food residue or tape) in a few months.

Styrecyle recycles polystyrene foam by putting it through a shredder and then sending it through a densifier. The densifier crushes the shredded Styrofoam into smaller, heavier blocks at a 50-1 ratio. Those blocks make storage and transportation of the polystyrene foam economical. Those blocks can then be broken down and recrafted into other plastic products, such as brooms, insulation or structural Styrofoam.

Styrecyle is in the later stages of testing out its equipment and processes. It plans to ramp up its operations by this spring.

"Our basic motto is go green and save green," Haron says. "We can save you money."

Source: Mark Haron, director of Styrecycle
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Qstride, an IT company, is opening a sales and marketing office in the Chrysler Building, and the Troy-based firm is eyeing a potential move to downtown Detroit later this year.

"This sales office is temporary," says Shane Gianino, vice president of business development for Qstride. "We want to be down there." He adds that a decision will be made within the next 6-9 months.

Qstride is a business intelligence and analytics firm that specializes in selling software that integrates with other firm's IT systems via things like mobile applications. This technology enables the users to leverage greater analytic insight that helps them make decisions faster and more effectively. It also works in IT staffing and his helping create more jobs with a number of companies downtown.

Qstride launched in April and now employs 20 people. It's new downtown Detroit office has a staff of five. The company currently has 50 openings for positions, about 80 percent of which will be for jobs in downtown Detroit.

"We're looking to hire for this office," Gianino says. "We're looking to hire some recruiters in talent acquisition and some account executives. If they had a background in technology that would be great."

Source: Shane Gianino, vice president of business development for Qstride
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Landall and Jill Proctor have opened Detroit Endurance Lab, a fitness studio that revolves around bicycling, in the Elevator Building overlooking the Detroit River near the Dequindre Cut.

Detroit Endurance Lab occupies about 1,000 square feet in the century-old warehouse renovated into loft-style offices and commercial spaces. The 1-month-old business is open to anyone who wants to exercise on a stationary bike, whether it be for triathlon training or spin classes.

"It's an inviting model," says Landall Proctor. "We want to get all types of people from those with weight-loss goals to people training for half ironmans. We want to be all-inclusive."

Landall Proctor has been working in the physical fitness industry as a side job since college. He worked in higher education (he has a masters in student affairs from George Washington University) in Washington, D.C. when the young couple had their first child last year. The 30-somethings decided to move to Detroit to be closer to family (Jill Proctor grew up in Rochester) and now live on the city's riverfront.

Landall Proctor, the driving force behind Detroit Endurance Lab, was immediately attracted to the community atmosphere and affordable price point of the Elevator Building. The close proximity to their home and knowledge that they are participating in Detroit's rebirth appealed to them.

"For us, it's important to live in the city," Landall Proctor says. "As cheesy as it sounds we believe in the revitalization, or whatever adjective you want to use, of the city. We want to put our money where our mouth is."

Source: Landall Proctor, co-owner & coach of Detroit Endurance Lab
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

As Quicken Loans Chairman Dan Gilbert continues to rack up more property on his downtown Detroit Monopoly board, Bedrock Real Estate Services (Gilbert's real-estate management firm) has been growing just as quickly.

The 2-year-old company, based in the Compuware Building, has hired 45 people over the last year, expanding its staff to 84 employees and one intern (the number of interns balloons to nearly a dozen during the summer). The expansion prompted Bedrock Real Estate Services to open a second office in the Firth National Building.

"It's obviously grown faster than any of us here anticipated," says Jim Ketai, founder & managing partner of Bedrock Real Estate Services. "We need another developer to help take responsibility for this growth."

That new developer is Eric Larson who just joined Bedrock Real Estate Services as co-managing partner. Larson had been non-executive president of Olympia Development, the real-estate company owned by the Ilitch family. Before that Larson ran Larson Realty Group where he developed, financed, owned and managed more than $3.5 billion in real estate, including General Motors' purchase and development of the Renaissance Center and Millender Center, and development of One Detroit Center and the Taubman Center at the College for Creative Studies in New Center.

Larson will focus on the master planning, acquisitions, development and leasing activities for Bedrock Real Estate Services and its sister company Rock Ventures, which serves as the umbrella company for Gilbert's real-estate holdings. Gilbert currently controls 2.6 million square feet of office space and 3,500 parking spaces in 15 office buildings, two parking garages and one surface lot in downtown Detroit that are under various stages of developers. The addition of the Z Lot parking garage will bring another 1,300 parking space and 33,000 square feet of retail space online. And Ketai's team has plans to continue that expansion.

"It will depend on how the growth and demand continues," Ketai says. "It's getting to the point that we don't have enough hardware (buildings) for the people who are interested in coming down here."

Source: Jim Ketai, founder & managing partner of Bedrock Real Estate Services
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Happy's Pizza is one of those pizza brands synonymous with Detroit not because it has a flagship headquarters downtown or because it can be easily found at Tigers games but because its franchises can be found in neighborhoods across the city.

The 15-year-old business got its start when Happy Asker (then 18-years-old) opened his first pizzeria in northeast Detroit. Today there are a dozen franchises in Detroit in every corner of the city. The company and its yellow, round, smiling mascot has achieved a high level of visibility with Detroiters despite the closest thing to a downtown flagship store is in New Center. Happy's Pizza is opening a couple dozen new franchises each year and it just opened its 100th franchise at Seven Mile Road and Van Dyke Avenue, not far from its first store.

"We want to make sure our centennial went in the community we got our start in," says Christina Rice, vice president of franchise development for Happy's Pizza. "We wanted to make sure it was in Detroit."

Each franchise employs about 15-30 people depending on the size of its delivery staff. That adds up to an employee base between 180-360 people in Detroit. Plus, there are another 50 employees at the company's corporate headquarters in Farmington Hills.

Happy's Pizza franchises are mainly concentrated in Michigan, which has 60 stores. There are also franchises in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, California and Nevada. The company has been adding between 20-30 franchises each year since 2008 and expects to keep that pace up as it looks to become a national household name in pizza.

Source: Christina Rice, vice president of franchise development for Happy's Pizza
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

When Skidmore Studio announced its move from downtown Royal Oak to the M@dison Building, the media heralded another company moving 20-plus jobs to downtown Detroit. A little more than a year later, the creative agency has hired another nine people and continues to grow.

"We are creatively finding places for people to be part of the team," says Tim Smith, president & CEO of Skidmore Studio.

The 54-year-old company serves as the anchor tenant for the M@dison Building, the eclectic hub for Quicken Loans Chairman Dan Gilbert's emerging downtown tech corridor being branded as Webward. Skidmore Studio and its team of 29 "creative souls" (as Smith describes his employees) occupy the fourth floor and have enough room to expand for the remaining five years of the firm's lease. Its most recent hires include a copywriter, video editors and a handful of graphic designers. Its newest hire occurred just last week.

Skidmore Studio has watched its workload grow primarily from new business coming from other downtown-area-based firms.

"It's being driven by Detroit-based companies," Smith says. "Not just M@dison Building start-ups but companies based elsewhere in the city. Companies like DTE Energy, Little Caesar's and the Detroit Tigers are knocking on our door and saying we want to work with you guys."

Source: Tim Smith, president & CEO of Skidmore Studio
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Paxahau moved from Ferndale to Greektown a year ago. In that time, it has hired six new people. Coincidence? The people behind the electronic music company don't think so.

"It's a very strong relationship between what we do and the city limits proper," says Jason Huvaere, president of Paxahau. "It's very important for us to be here. And we love being here."

Paxahau moved into 3,500-square-feet of office space above Flood's Bar & Grille in the Cronice & Slate Building, adjacent to the Blue Cross Blue Shield campus. Its 15-person staff organizes large events in the city and beyond, such as the Movement Electronic Music and Detroit Jazz festivals. That staff also includes dozens of interns during those events, which serves as a talent pipeline for the company.

"We hire a lot of our interns," Huvaere says. "We just hired two of them."

The company is currently working on rebranding Movement and redesigning the festival's layout to fit the changing contours of Hart Plaza. It's also working on enhancing its music technology to better capitalize on the music produced at its events.

Source: Jason Huvaere, president of Paxahau
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

The City of Hamtramck is looking for you, if you have entrepreneurial ambitions of opening a new business in one of Michigan's most dynamic cities.

The city will host the Hamtramck Business Start-up Information Session at Cafe 1923 this Wednesday evening (Feb. 20). The idea is to help prospective business owners learn about things like business planning, lining up financing, creating a marketing plan and scaling their enterprises. Hamtramck has enjoyed quite a bit of success as of late with cultivating and attracting businesses, such as Perkins Pickles, Rock City Pies and Chiipss skateboard shop.

"We want to build on some of the momentum we have had in the last few months," says Jason Friedmann, community & economic development director for the City of Hamtramck.

Hamtramck is partnering with D:hive to offer BUILD classes, the nonprofit's 8-week small business start-up training program. The normal fee for the class is $1,200 but Hamtramck residents will be able to take advantage of the course for far less. Prices will be determined on a sliding scale between $100 and $300.

Hamtramck has enjoyed a lot of success recently in helping cultivate creative, sustainable and lifestyle businesses, but the city would like to expand its diverse business climate to include some new economy startups. It is working with Detroit Start-up Drinks to host one of its gatherings in April.

"There is a lot of small retail space that could be repurposed as offices," Friedmann says. "We are working on a loft building that could house startups."

The Hamtramck Business Start-up Information Session will take place between 6:30 and 8:00 p.m. at Cafe 1923, 2287 Holbrook.

Source: Jason Friedmann, community & economic development director for the city of Hamtramck
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

The folks behind Challenge Detroit are looking to build on the talent attraction/retention initiative's initial success by repeating it this year.

Challenge Detroit brings in a couple dozen recent college graduates to Detroit each year, giving them jobs and coordinating opportunities for them to live, work and play in the city. The nonprofit pairs the fellows from each class with local employers and provides them with a living stipend. Last year it welcomed 29 fellows that work for the likes of Compuware and Quicken Loans. This year it plans to bring in another 30 young people as part of its second class.

"It's a manageable number for us," says Deirdre Greene Groves, executive director of Challenge Detroit. "It's a number that allows a greater sense of comradery in the group. They can still get to know each other."

Challenge Detroit is part of a growing number of talent initiatives that looks to bring more recent college graduates to Detroit by matching them with jobs. Organizations like Teach for America and Venture for America pair dozens of young people with positions in local schools and startups, respectively.

Challenge Detroit pairs these graduates with jobs at a number of larger corporations, nonprofits and institutions, providing them with a living stipend of $500 per month. It asks in return that the participants live, play and volunteer in the city. This year, Challenge Detroit is working to make sure its participants more fully capitalize on its experiences.

"We want to make sure we are giving a great benefit to our partners," Greene Groves says. "How can we spend a couple more weeks on them?"

Challenge Detroit is currently accepting applications for its 2012-13 class, which are due by March 3. For information, click here.

Source: Deirdre Greene Groves, executive director of Challenge Detroit
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

When the M@dison Building opened in downtown Detroit in late 2011, Detroit Labs was one of the first start-ups to move in. Today the mobile app company has grown to the point where it's almost standing-room only in its office, prompting it to start building out its own office nearby on Woodward Avenue.

"We are out-growing our space like you wouldn't believe," says Paul Glomski, co-founder & CEO of Detroit Labs. "We're proud to say, 'We are the fastest-growing startup in Detroit.'"

Detroit Labs launched in May 2011 as one of Detroit Venture Partners' first portfolio companies. It started out creating custom mobile apps for the likes of Quicken Loans, Stryker and Chevrolet.  It has now taken on work for Domino's Pizza, a company that is almost as well known for its software innovation as its pizza. Glomski points out that Domino's pizza ordering app does about $4 million in business a week, and Detroit Labs is one of the key players in helping make that happen.

"They wanted to bring in a team that lives and breathes mobile day and night," Glomski says. He adds that Detroit Labs will continue to do custom work for big companies in 2013 but also expects to begin creating its own original apps this year. "We have a lot of areas we are looking at," Glomski says. "We have a lot of games we're working on. We have an app in the app store (called Koha) that helps people share bills (for things like groceries and going out to eat)."

All of this new work has prompted Detroit Labs to go on a hiring spree. It has doubled its staff to 32 employees and some summer interns. Glomski expects his staff to surpass 50 by the end of the year. That expansion has led the company to make the most of its 2,000 square feet in the M@dison Building, creating makeshift standing desks and even turning a treadmill into a work space.

Detroit Labs is building out its own space less than a block from the M@dison Building. Glomski declined to reveal the address but did say it's a building owned by Dan Gilbert and will measure out to 10,000 square feet. The new space will be similar to the unique nature of the M@dison Building and should be good to go within a few months.

"They're already swinging hammers and doing the actual build out," Glomski says. "It will be very unique. Our team is taking a sense of ownership to build out the space. It will be spectacular. It will be unique to Detroit Labs. It will be cool and collaborative. Every building Dan Gilbert and Bedrock (Gilbert's real-estate development company) do is unique and this will continue that trend."

Source: Paul Glomski, co-founder & CEO of Detroit Labs
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Tom Perkins never planned to become a professional pickler until a little more than a year ago. Now he has his own growing business, Perkins Pickles, that is getting ready to open up its own production facility in Hamtramck.

Perkins describes the creation of Perkins Pickles as accidental. The reporter for AnnArbor.com has always been a pickle connoisseur. When he lived in Chicago in 2008-09, he and his co-workers would always choose their lunch location based on their search of finding the best pickle in town. Frustrated, Perkins came to a conclusion.

"I finally decided I could do better and made my own," Perkins says. "I never had any intention of starting my own pickle company. I ended up winning a 'pickle-off,' and a friend's dad suggested I turn it into a business."

Perkins spent the last eight months making his pickles in the kitchen of Traffic Jam & Snug restaurant, which allowed him to create about 30 cases of pickles a week. He has grown his business to a team of 10 people making and selling pickles that appear in retail locations across Metro Detroit.

Perkins Pickles is now putting the finishing touches on its own space in Hamtramck, at 2635 Caniff, an older house turned retail space. The 1,500 square feet space, set to open late this winter, is coincidentally down the street from a vacant building that was once a pickle factory. That space was too big for Perkins and his team, but the new space will give Perkins Pickles the capacity to increase its production ten fold, to 300 cases per week.

"People image a pickle factory like a Willy Wonka type of thing," Perkins says. "It's nothing like that all."

He points out that half of the space will be used for storage and production filled with brine containers instead of rivers of chocolate. Perkins does expect to continue expanding his team to up to 15 people as orders steadily grow.

Perkins Pickles recently scored some shelf space in Hiller's Markets, and is aiming to make its products a fixture in supermarkets across Michigan and into Chicago later this year.

Source: Tom Perkins, owner & chief pickler at Perkins Pickles
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.