Entrepreneurs

So what does it take to get funded? We use the following criteria to evaluate a potential investment:

• Start-ups only (pre-revenue or in business less than 18 months)
• Michigan-based
• Promising or disrupting technology with broad applicability
• Industry-specific to Homeland Security
• Rapid time-to-market
• Cost of commercialization low, or follow-on capital imminent
• High-value investments
• Solve existing commercial problem

Of course, other common sense investment criteria such as exceptional management, sound business model, valid distribution, and product acceptance, must be in place as part of the due diligence.

The process begins with the submission of your Business Plan or Executive Summary.

Our process is pretty simple; if the core business product or service looks promising, we will vet the deal through our technology group. If that passes muster, we begin to evaluate the merits of the business model and the team. Assuming that works out, we begin discussions with Management to determine capital needs. Upon agreement, we issue a Term Sheet. Once due diligence is completed and all documentation is complete, we make our initial investment. This process WILL NOT be as fast as you, the entrepreneur, want. Understand that it takes some time to understand the business, the model, the managers, and the overall plan. And in the cases where all of the details have not been fleshed out, that adds to the timeline. In a perfect world, we could go from initial exposure to funding within 90-120 days – but it’s never a perfect world.