Press

GreenMark BioMedical Inc. 

Oct 02, 2019, 17:30 ET

EAST LANSING, Mich. and ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — GreenMark Biomedical Inc. today announced it has been awarded a $1.5m Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to further develop its patented nanoparticle-based dental technology for detection of early-stage dental caries. The 2-year project involves collaboration with dental and biomaterials experts at the University of Michigan, Creighton University, Tufts University and University of Colorado, and is being funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

GreenMark BioMedical Inc.

GreenMark’s diagnostic product identifies early tooth decay known as dental caries that, if left untreated, may form into cavities. Identified caries can then be treated non-invasively without filling or surgery, reducing the need for costly dental procedures. GreenMark’s core technology utilizes bioresorbable starch-based nanoparticles which degrade into harmless materials by the time the patient is ready to leave the dental office.

“Effective management of dental caries, which affects well over 90% of the world’s population, is characterized by detection of early lesions and accurate diagnosis of caries activity,” explains Dr. Brian Clarkson, B.Ch.D., L.D.S., M.S.,

SWACU leverages mobile app to improve children’s financial literacy

October 01, 2019 09:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—HT Mobile Apps, (HTMA), announced today that Southwest Airlines Federal Credit Union has seen significant growth since launching Ace Jr., providing free financial education to SWACU members and their children through a mobile application.

“The games, chores and financial education lessons make Ace Jr. different from many apps out there and keep kids engaged”

White labeled on HTMA’s Member Jr. platform., Ace Jr. makes learning about money fun for children ages three to 12 years old. Users can learn how to set savings goals, monitor their accounts and improve their financial literacy through educational games. With games varying in difficulty for different ages, users are challenged to continue learning valuable skills as they play. The platform also features a chores section where families can assign household tasks for a reward.

Since launching Ace Jr. in July, SWACU has s

Last year, Adam Banzhoff was living in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, working an IT job at a bank and feeling morose. “I was in a downswing, a little bit of a depression,” he tells me. Then one day, on a whim, he signed up for Horti, a new subscription service that ships members a plant every month. Soon a crispy wave fern arrived, a frisky-looking thing with rippling tendrils.

When the first new leaf appeared, it gave Banzhoff an electric thrill. He was hooked. A year later, between Horti’s regular shipments and pots he bought on his own, Banzhoff had transformed his house into a riot of green, with more than 120 plants. 

View source version on wired.com: https://www.wired.com/story/on-demand-economy-brings-us-something-useful-nature/

• Aaron Averbuch tasked with crafting plant seller’s tech team, improving supply chain
• He previously served as vice president of engineering infrastructure at Placed
• Company recently bolstered by $7.5 million investment

Aaron Averbuch

Bloomscape, an online plant startup based in downtown Detroit, has tapped a former executive of a Snap Inc. company to serve as its first chief technology officer.

Aaron Averbuch, 40, previously served as vice president of engineering infrastructure for consumer location analytics company Placed on behalf of Snap, parent company of Snapchat. In May, Santa Monica, Calif.-based Snap sold Placed to New York-based Foursquare Labs Inc.

Averbuch, a Detroit native, recently returned to Michigan after spending nearly two decades in the Seattle area, where he held several top posts at tech companies including Microsoft, Cisco Systems and AdReady, among others, Averbuch told Crain’s on Monday.

In his new role, Averbuch will be tasked with building Bloomscape’s tech team while leveraging technology to improve the company’s supply chain, according to the company. He started his new position Monday.

Averbuch will take the lead on several digital initiatives and play an instrumental

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—

Plinqit shares live demo of its ‘cool’ savings tool, the only app of its kind proven to boost user engagement and increase financial wellness, during Day One of FinovateFall

Plinqit, a brandable, savings app and the only savings tool that pays users for engaging with content, will share a live demo of its unique savings app at the 2019 FinovateFall Conference, the leading-edge fintech event, showcasing the most successful and innovative banking and financial technology.

FinovateFall debuted in New York more than ten years ago, updating the fintech community with the latest insights and ideas to stay ahead of the curve. This year, FinovateFall is set to share industry insights, opportunities and challenges and host the first-ever Finovate Awards. The event will house more than 70 live demos, over 1,500 senior attendees and more than 120 expert speakers from lead

DETROIT, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019 – Jim Tenzillo, Director at Invest Michigan has been selected to participate in the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Leadership Detroit program, a 10-month transformational leadership program designed to challenge emerging and existing community leaders from Southeast Michigan to bring about positive change.

“I look forward to joining such an accomplished group of individuals who share my passion for making a difference in the community. Through the Leadership Detroit experience, I welcome the opportunity to expand my understanding of the Detroit region and gain insight into the key issues facing our city and region,” said Tenzillo. 

As part of Leadership Detroit’s Class XLI, Tenzillo will join more than 70 executives from across Southeast Michigan, representing a cross-section of the community, including business, organized labor, government, education, media, civic groups, health services and community organizations.

“Real change is fueled by leaders who inspire us to choose new paths and who are willing to bring those pathways into reality,” said Dan Piepszowski, senior director of community leadership development at the Detroit Regional Chamber. “Our ability to improve the quality of life in the region relies on a clear understanding that leadership is an ongoing activity that calls us to be creative, ingenious and committed to hard work. The Leadership Detroit experience reinforces that understanding by taking leaders out of their comfort zones t

Your ideas can’t get anywhere without capital. Learn what types of funding are available for early-stage technology companies and how to set your company up for support from angel or venture investors.

Invest Michigan CEO Charlie Moret will be a panelist for a webinar hosted by Crain’s Detroit, entitled ‘How to Fund Your Tech Startup.’ He will be joined by:

Martin Dober, Senior Vice President of Invest Detroit, Managing Director of Invest Detroit Ventures, and Invest Michigan Board Member; 

Fred Molnar, Vice President of Entrepreneurism and Innovation for the MEDC and Executive Director of the Michigan Life Science Innovation Center;

Brad King, Founder and CEO of Orbion Space Technology, an Invest Michigan portfolio company

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• Types of funding available
• What funders look for in a startup
• How to apply
• Other resources available for Michigan startups

To register, visit https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1260284&tp_key=4a11e78be3

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—

Complete trial enrollment anticipated in early 2020 with topline results projected Q2 2020

Hispanics represent nearly 65% of early patient enrollment

Novel PDE4D Mechanism of Action is designed to improve cognition and memory

Just ahead of World Alzheimer’s Day on September 21st, Tetra Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, today announced it has surpassed 50% enrollment – 65% of which are Hispanic patients– in its Phase 2 clinical trial (PICASSO AD) of BPN14770 in patients diagnose

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—

First and only savings app of its kind, Plinqit pays users for engaging with content

Plinqit, a brandable, savings app and the only savings tool that pays users for engaging with content, was selected as a finalist for Bank Director’s Best of FinXTech Awards, recognizing its innovation in creating an interactive savings app.

The FinXTech awards recognize the efforts of emerging financial technology solutions within its FinXTech Connect platform that best help a financial institution grow revenues, create

Genomenon today announced a partnership with rare disease advocacy group BPAN Warriors, with the goal of providing resources to assist researchers and encourage pharmaceutical companies to invest in finding efficacious treatments for Beta-Propeller Protein-Associated Neurodegeneration (BPAN), a progressive disease causing abnormal iron deposits in the brain.

BPAN Warriors is an international community of advocates who have loved ones directly affected by BPAN. Their goal is to facilitate access to scientific research and community resources, and to support families dealing with the ultra-rare disease. The Genomenon team became aware of the organization when founder Sarah Chisholm signed up for the Mastermind Genomic Search Engine, which provides access and insight into scientific research.

As a result of the connection with Chisholm, Genomenon used Mastermind to produce a curated database of the research related to 94 unique variants (genetic mutations) found within the gene linked to BPAN (WDR45). The annotated “genomic landscape” provides a comprehensive overview of all existing research related to the disease.

As part of the partnership, Genomenon will make the comprehensive genomic landscape for BPAN freely available to any pharmaceutical company or researcher interested in using the data. The a

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Though crowd-sourced delivery is often painted as a result of the kind of on-demand culture that lightning-fast fulfillment operations and technologies are enabling, Deliv founder and CEO Daphne Carmeli sees a value proposition for both consumer and businesses elsewhere.

“Predictability trumps speed,” she said at GroceryShop in Las Vegas Sunday.

Deliv, she explained, is not a consumer-facing service, but a ‘back-end service” — an “asset-free UPS.”

Deliv, which runs on gig workers for the most part, is not an on-demand provider — it’s a “scheduled delivery provider,” said Carmeli. The company’s central supposition is that getting an item to a customer when they expect it is more important than getting it to them as fast as possible. For businesses too, Deliv’s model promises lean, efficient labor and fewer surprises.

With more than $80 million in venture funding, operations in 1,500 cities and 5,000 customers across grocery, pharmacy and retail, according to Carmeli, predictability is so far working for the Silicon Valley startup.

The growth in both drivers on the road and dollars invested in crowd-sourced delivery solutions such as Deliv, Roadie and Instacart demonstrate retailers see the value in outsourcing last-mile deliveries in order to fast-track omnichannel growth. But that doesn’t mean it is easy to do so profitably.

“Unit economics are the be all end all in a company’s

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sept. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — While the Quinceañera industry is growing rapidly, one recent trend is that of the Quinceañero. Quince Años events have normally been for Hispanic families to celebrate the 15th birthdays of their girls and their transitions to becoming women, but in the past few years, we have seen more families choose to do this for their sons as well. The Quinceañero has the same cultural purpose as a modern Quinceañera — to present the child to God and celebrate their life in front of family and friends. Most importantly, the event carries the same weight of marking the boy’s journey into adulthood.

The Quinceañero celebration provides young men a rite of passage that they crave. In their teen years, boys face so many changes — they experience life-altering decisions that form who they will be as an adult. An event like a Quinceañero serves as a charge to the young men to be good citizens and to take their religious beliefs seriously. The fiesta is also a reminder of where they came from and a chance to celebrate their culture.

Kim Gamez, CEO of 

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—

Missouri credit union launches Plinqit to create a fun way for members to save and engage with the institution

O’Fallon, Mo.-based West Community Credit Union announced today that it will offer Plinqit, a brandable, savings app and the only savings tool that pays users for engaging with content.

As a true innovator and an institution keenly dedicated to delivering products and services that offer exceptional value to its members, West Community Credit Union works with St. Louis-based SixThirty, a fintech accelerator focused on late-seed stage startups that have a product, market traction and

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Sep 9, 2019—

New preclinical research suggests the ability of BPN14770, an investigational drug under development by Tetra Therapeutics to protect against memory loss and neuronal atrophy induced by amyloid beta1-42, a hallmark protein of Alzheimer’s disease. In a humanized mouse model of amyloid beta1-42 neurotoxicity, BPN14770, a selective inhibitor of phosphodiesterase-4D (PDE4D), was shown to trigger multiple compensatory mechanisms in the brain that reduced memory impairment, damage to nerve morphology, deficits in synaptic proteins, and impaired neurological signaling. Tetra is currently conducting Phase 2 clinical trials of BPN14770 in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease and adults with Fragile X Syndrome.

The new research, entitled “Protection from amyloid-beta peptide-induced memory, biochemical and morphological deficits by a phosphodiesterase-4D (PDE4D) allosteric inhibitor,” has been published online in the Journal of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics (JPET) by Su-Ying Cui, Ph.D. and colleagues at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, and other Tetra Therapeutics’ collaborato

In April, we announced the winners of the Bio-IT World Best of Show Awards during the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo. These awards are given with the goal of recognizing the best of the innovative product solutions for the life sciences industry on display at the conference. We wanted to highlight these products as they measurably improve workflow and capacity, enabling better research. – The Editors

Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) has ushered in a new era of high-throughput genomic analysis and increased our ability to understand the molecular basis behind the disease. While the capacity for generating genetic data has exploded, the capacity to interpret the meaning of this data has lagged. Information about variants and mutations discovered by NGS and its predecessors (Sanger sequencing and array genotyping) are dispersed throughout the scientific literature and often clouded by the vagaries of variant nomenclature.

With over 500,000 new genomic publications expected this year, it is impossible to obtain a comprehensive view of the published genomic research with manual searching alone.

When genetic data is used in a clinical setting, having complete information about a variant is critical, as these tests can inform diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic decisions, and can often have life or death consequences.

Manual curation of a single variant by searching Google Scholar or similar to

While we’re primarily focused on the Twin Cities innovation economy, we also have our eyes on all of the startup and tech activity happening throughout the entire Midwest. Here are the major tech fundings, acquisitions, mergers, moves and IPOs that went down in the region in August. See all Midwest Reports here.

8/1: Detroit-based Bloomscape, a direct-to-consumer plant company, raised a $7.5 million Series A from Revolution Ventures, with participation from Endeavor.

8/2: – Columbus-based ORIS Intelligence, a provider of insights for manufacturers, was acquired by market intelligence platform PriceSpider. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

8/6: Chicago-based LanzaTech, a maker of carbon recycling technology, raised a $72 million Series E from Novo Holdings.

8/6: Chicago-based Dough, a commission-free online broker, raised $20 million in capital from Tastytrade.

8/7: Kansas City-based C2FO, an online marketplace for working capital, raised $200 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund, with participation from return backers Temasek and Union Square Ventures.

8/9: Ann Arbor-based AI startup Voxel51 raised $2 million in seed funding from eLab Ventures.

8/12: Chicago-based Hazel Technologies, a biotech startup focu

Detroit-based e-commerce and delivery company Bloomscape has secured $7.5 million in Series A funding, according to company database Crunchbase, topping the city’s recent funding headlines. The cash infusion was announced Aug.1 and led by Revolution.

According to its Crunchbase profile, “Bloomscape makes buying plants easy by delivering ready-to-go plants to its customer’s door. Bloomscape is a DTC company with a mission to drastically improve the entire plant-buying and -care experience in every area of the home and garden.”

The 2-year-old startup has raised two previous funding rounds, including a seed round earlier this year.

The round brings total funding raised by Detroit companies in commerce and shopping over the past 90 days to $117 million. The local commerce and shopping industry has seen six funding rounds over the past year, capturing a total of $163 million in venture funding.

In other local funding news, enterprise software