Sunday, January 25, 2009

Michigan Venture Capital Investment Doubles Over '07

Takes money to make money and the jobs that come with it, so this was a bit of good (and surprising) economic news for Michigan:

Venture capital investment in Michigan companies soared last year, reaching a level not seen since the peak of the technology boom in 2000, a report released Friday shows.

Michigan also improved its standing as an attractive place for venture capital. It ranked 16th among the states in terms of venture capital investment last year, up from No. 25 in 2007, according to the MoneyTree report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.


Wait, something's not right. Could have sworn that someone was out there talking about how horrible this state was for business, about how no one in their right mind would ever want to come here.

Hmmm. Who was that again? Oh well, never mind. Guess they were wrong.

Last year, venture capital firms invested $245.7 million in 43 Michigan companies. That's more than double the activity of the previous year, when 22 Michigan companies received $104.7 million from venture firms.


Even during the big 4th quarter bust, Michigan was drawing the $$. We still gained while the rest of the nation was scrambling. That might be because of the effort we made to attract the growth industries, so it's a real good thing we didn't listen to those that wanted to dismiss them as the "latest trendy idea".

Michigan's strong performance came despite a national slowdown in venture capital investment last year.

Nationwide, $28.3 billion went into 3,808 deals in 2008, down 8.4% from $30.9 million in 3,952 deals in 2007.

The only sectors to gain investment dollars were clean technology, information-technology services and media and entertainment. Clean technology refers to alternative energy, pollution and recycling and power supplies and conservation.


Unfortunately the Bush Recession will probably deny us a repeat performance in '09, but maybe after that...

When the money people come to town, you know it shows that we were headed in the right direction after all. Just got to weather this storm and we will be back to it, provided we stay on the path and not get side tracked by the nay-sayers who would denigrate our state in an attempt to serve their own selfish special interests.