CASSOPOLIS ? More than 200 companies have submitted applications to be named among the Michigan 50 Companies To Watch, an awards program focused on second stage up-and-coming entrepreneurs and underwritten by the Edward Lowe Foundation.
Edward Lowe Foundation Executive Director Mark Lang said the contest, which closed Wednesday, attracted well over 200 companies to the web site to begin the application process. The application this year, the second year of this program, was done entirely on line. A year ago a little less than 150 companies participated.
?Our applicants were better represented throughout the state this year,?? Lang said. ?We drew more from Saginaw and Traverse City, which weren?t well represented last year. Detroit was more heavily represented. Grand Rapids wasn?t as dominate as last year.?
The next step will be to cull the 200 plus applications down to about 100 to 120 and then submit those to a panel of judges made up from the other supporting organizations on Jan. 30. Those include the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center, Small Business Association of Michigan and the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The annual projected revenue for the competing companies this year is about $1.2 billion, Lang said. A year ago it was $858 million. Some 37 percent of the applicants come from the service industry, 21 percent from other types of service, such as marketing, biotech and pharma, some 18 percent from manufacturing, 17 percent Information Technology, and 7 percent from retail and wholesale. Collectively, the 2006 applicants employed 3,500 full-time workers in 2005.
The awards will be made April 19 at the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center in East Lansing.
