Aria Ventures, an investment coordinating firm for start-ups, has opened up an office in the M@dison Building in downtown Detroit. Aria Ventures helps early-stage startups develop their business and find funding solutions, and it sees the M@dison Building as a prime farm system for start-ups.
"We get that company funded through our angel network anywhere to the tune of $500,000 to $1.5 million in the first round," says Jeff Sloan, founder & managing partner of
Aria Ventures and co-founder of
StartupNation.
The Birmingham-based firm has a portfolio of eight active companies in the online, health-care and veterinary pharmaceutical industries. Sloan sees a number of these companies as prime candidates for investment from the Detroit Venture Partners venture capital firm, which is based in the M@dison Building overlooking Grand Circus Park.
"Our goal is to launch 5-10 new companies over the next couple of years," Sloan says. "We would love to have several of them end up in partnerships with Detroit Venture Partners."
Dan Gilbert, chairman of Quicken Loans, created the
M@dison Building to serve as the tech and entrepreneurial hub for his family of companies, a vision his team is branding as Webward. The M@dison Building is filled with a broad range of venture capital firms, angel investors, start-ups and established creative-based firms. Sloan sees this as the groundwork for a significant entrepreneurial ecosystem to emerge in the near future.
"I feel a real sense of momentum with real action underlying the fantasy of it all," Sloan says. "I think we really have a shot like we haven't had before to move southeast Michigan forward."
Source: Jeff Sloan, founder & managing partner of Aria Ventures
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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