ANN ARBOR - Three companies were recently awarded a combined total of $137,500 in micro loan funding through the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund, a collaborative effort of Michigan's SmartZones to support start-up growth throughout the state. Advanced Battery Concepts, FreeStride and RealBio will use the funding to further the commercialization efforts of their technologies. ?Helping
GM said Thursday that it would sell 55 percent of Opel to Magna, which is backed by Russia's OAO Sberbank and auto maker OAZ Gaz, The Wall Street Journal reported. Employees would hold a 10 percent sake in Opel and the U.S. auto maker would retain the remaining 35 percent, GM said. The Opel Trust
DETROIT - A newly formed organization of CEOs from across the state, including the former Detroit Renaissance group, proposed massive changes Thursday to Michigan government that they said would enable the state to climb out of economic ruin. The group, called Business Leaders for Michigan, is advocating broadening the sales tax to services and reducing
LANSING - The Michigan Senate moved Wednesday toward acting on legislation that would expand the state's ability to issue tax credits for economic development this year, require greater disclosure about the nature of those deals and extend specific credits to lure the creation of an alternative energy park in Wixom. But even as the Senate
WIXOM - Two companies that make energy storage devices and solar panels have reportedly reached an agreement to buy Ford Motor Co.'s huge Wixom Assembly Plant and transform it into an alternative energy park. Terms of the deal were not announced. The 50-year-old plant, which closed in 2007, will get a $725 million make over
GRAND RAPIDS - US Signal, which provides data bandwidth capacity in the Midwest, Thursday announced that it is expanding its long-haul fiber network points of presence (POP) in Midland and Three Rivers as well as Lafayette, Ind. The expansion introduces service access at the following locations: Midland (MDLDMIMN) Three Rivers (THRRMIXT) Lafayette, Ind. (LFYTINXA) �??Our
ANN ARBOR - QuatRx Pharmaceuticals Company, announced Thursday the end of the company's long-term safety study for its menopause treatment drug, Ophena, which position the company to file a New Drug Application with the US Food and Drug Administration in early 2010. Specially, the company said it received positive efficacy results from the second of
ANN ARBOR - For the second time in 2009, an event featuring the President of the United States caused a spike in network traffic in Michigan and around the country. President Barack Obama's school-time address from Wakefield High School in Virginia on September 8 was streamed live from the White House web site to schools
SAGINAW - The Kalamazoo Promise provides Kalamazoo Public School graduates with up to 100 percent tuition scholarship for post-secondary education. Its mission is to transform the community and stimulate the economy through a new generation of learners. With this letter, I'd like to respectfully challenge area business organizations to launch a new Entrepreneurship Promise (E
DEARBORN - The Michigan Department of Information Technology in partnership with two other Michigan agencies on Thursday officially announced an initiative to develop, attract and retain IT jobs and investments in Michigan. MDIT Director Ken Theis, in an interview from the CIO Summit in Dearborn, will work to make Michigan a destination for growing information,