Are You a Human goes for more seed capital in Accelerate Michigan

Are You a Human, a promising Internet start-up, has been around the business plan competition block once or twice and picked up a few large checks along the way. Enough so that the downtown Detroit-based firm knows which ones are worthwhile, and the start-up is excited about this year's Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition.

"For this one there aren't a lot of strings attached to the prize money," says Reid Tatoris, co-founder of Are You a Human. "It's pretty open."

Are You a Human is reinventing CAPTCHA technology, the squiggly letters used for verification on websites, with simple games. The idea is to make it impossible for computer programs to beat these games so they can't buy bulk items of things like concert tickets. The 2-year-old start-up leveraged this technology to win some big prize money at national business plan competition, including a six-figure check from the prestigious Rice Business Plan Competition. That led to a venture capital investment from the likes of Detroit Venture Partners and its move from Ann Arbor to downtown Detroit.

This year Are You a Human has its sights set on the second annual Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition and its $1 million in prizes. The business plan competition, set to take place in Ann Arbor later this fall, features a $500,000 grand prize on top of a bevy of other prizes. It also gives the participants to shop their start-ups to potential investors and partners.

"It’s another opportunity to talk to people in the state of Michigan and share our idea," Tatoris says. "It’s a pretty unique opportunity."

Are You a Human's co-founders have become much more choosy about which, if any, business plan competitions they take part in now. Accelerate Michigan is appealing because of the big pool of prize money and the only strings attached being that the winners have to be based in Michigan.

"Our experience (with business plan competitions) has been pretty good but it time consuming," Tatoris says. "There is a lot of focus that needs to be paid to them."

Source: Reid Tatoris, co-founder of Are You a Human
Writer: Jon Zemke

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