ANN ARBOR – Six Michigan technology companies split $12,500 in cash prizes awarded by the Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest in its fall 2008 business-plan writing contest. The grand prize of $5,000 went to Hygieia, a biotech start up in Ann Arbor.
Hygieia was entered in the Emerging Company category; the other category is New Business Idea. Hygieia won for developing a glucose meter for diabetics that works as an endocrinologist-to-go. It�??s capable of modifying a patent�??s treatment on an as-needed basis to reduce the complications of diabetes.
Second place winner in the Emerging Company category, getting a check for $2,500, was Clean Emissions Fluids, a Detroit company. The company offers a storage and pumping system for dispensing of multiplicity of Biofuels and Clean Diesel fluids.
Third place went to Virtual Products. The Ann Arbor company won $1,000. Virtual Products has a very low cost, patent-pending plastic Exergaming ramp that allows full body interaction with any digital environment such as video games, computer games and Second Life.
In the New Business Idea category, the first place winner was LegalEase Solutions, an Ann Arbor startup that provides onshore/offshore legal services, including legal research, litigation support, document review and transactional work. The company took home a cash prize of $2000.
The second and third place winners, each getting $1000, was GiftZip.Com of East Lansing and In the Groove from Saginaw. GiftZip.Com offers consumers a fast, fun and free way to give gifts electronically; In the Groove has developed a knee brace for medical lateral knee pain that gives immediate relief of pain.
Some 111 companies participated in the fall contest. The spring contest, where the grand prize winner gets $25,000, starts Feb. 4. For more information, click on GLEQ.Org
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