Fusion Coolant Systems is moving a significant amount of its brain power to Detroit, setting up a technology development center at the Focus: HOPE manufacturing facility on the city's west side.
The Ypsilanti-based start-up is commercializing an environmentally friendly cutting fluid for industrial uses. That technology eliminates toxic cutting fluids in metal processing for industrial sectors such as aerospace. It also improves cutting tools performance while reducing the wear.
One of
Fusion Coolant Systems' board members, Michigan angel investor extraordinaire
Terry Cross, connected the firm's executive team to
Focus: HOPE, enabling the start-up to take advantage of a cost-effective facility to test and develop its products, Focus: HOPE's advanced manufacturing training facility.
"We wouldn't be able to afford that on our own," says Tom Gross, CEO of
Fusion Coolant Systems. "Now we have a full shift."
Fusion Coolant Systems is a graduate of the
Ann Arbor SPARK East Incubator in downtown Ypsilanti. It employs four people and independent contractor and has two job openings now for a business development person and a service technician. It expects to hire more as it continues to generate some initial revenues from its green cutting fluids. The start-up has received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from both the
Michigan Microloan Fund (operated by
Ann Arbor SPARK) and the Detroit-based
First Step Fund.
Source: Tom Gross, CEO of Fusion Coolant Systems
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at
SEMichiganStartup.com.
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