May 2018

For health-care startups, navigating the rapidly changing landscape of clinical trials, regulatory requirements and reimbursement rules has become increasingly difficult in recent years. “It’s easier to invent a product than to put all the pieces together to take it to market,” observed Mona Patel, vice president of clinical training and... Read More

The 2018 Michigan Growth Capital Symposium provided the perfect forum for a panel of startup executives to weigh the pros and cons of launching venture-backed health-care companies in Michigan. The pros far outnumbered the cons. The “Big M” is a big plus for startup founders and chief executives in Ann... Read More

The cybersecurity industry is undergoing rapid changes that are remaking the competitive landscape, said a panel of experts at the 2018 Michigan Growth Capital Symposium. With new breaches occurring nearly every day, a growing number of retailers, Internet companies, banks, hospital systems and other large organizations with valuable customer data... Read More

University technology-transfer offices and venture capitalists in the Midwest have a lot to gain by working together, said a MGCS panel of experts drawn from universities, research institutions and venture capital firms in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio. “Venture investing is a relationship business,” stated Erik Iverson, managing director of the... Read More

Blockchain is a powerful, potentially transformative technology that has attracted the attention of entrepreneurs and investors. Whether it will turn out to be a boom or bust over the long haul is still open to conjecture. At the 2018 MGCS, a panel of researchers, entrepreneurs and investors took a critical... Read More

University of Michigan Finance Professor David Brophy, who founded the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium nearly four decades ago, announced that the nation’s longest-running venture fair is taking on a new name and identity. From now on, the MGCS will be called the Midwest Growth Capital Symposium to reflect the growing... Read More

Wendell Brooks, senior vice president of Intel Corporation and president of Intel Capital, returned to Ann Arbor and his alma mater on May 15 to deliver an important message at the 2018 Michigan Growth Capital Symposium. “It’s the Midwest Big Ten schools that are filling the engineering talent [pool] in... Read More

Concussion is the most common form of traumatic brain injury affecting over 300,000 American youth annually. Given mild and overlooked symptoms among many experiencing concussion, its incidence is likely considerably higher, upwards of 2-3 million annually. Short and long-term impacts include impaired cognition and lost productivity; long term risks are... Read More

If you can’t measure it, how do you improve it?  The world struggles with objectively quantifying movement and performance. In athletics, we keep statistics on more information than it is seemingly possible. We run BEEP tests to measure endurance tests, 40-yard dash to measure speed, Pre-planned cone drills to measure... Read More

In June 2015, two “security researchers” remotely took control of a Jeep Cherokee while it was traveling at 70 mph on a U.S. highway. The hackers used the car’s entertainment system, which was connected to the mobile data network, to manipulate critical functions such as steering and braking. This hacking... Read More