In the News

Ann Arbor VC funds reap big returns from HandyLab sale

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Ann Arbor

The smaller venture capital funds in the Ann Arbor area are starting to get bigger thanks to big deals, like the sale of HandyLab.

Excerpt:

As major venture capital firms in California and Boston shift their attention toward late-stage investments to mitigate risk, opportunity emerges for Michigan investors willing to take the risky plunge into early-stage ventures.

The potential benefits of an early-stage strategy for Ann Arbor were on full display with the student-led Wolverine Venture Fund, which last week celebrated a financial windfall from one of its first investments.

The Wolverine Venture Fund reaped a return of six to seven times its total investment of $350,000 in U-M spinoff HandyLab, an Ann Arbor-based medical devices firm acquired Friday by New Jersey-based Becton, Dickinson and Co. AnnArbor.com confirmed Friday that BD paid close to $300 million.

The deal showcases the potential of small-scale, early-stage investors and underscores the increasing prominence of student-run funds. The Wolverine Venture Fund, along with Ann Arbor-based EDF Ventures, was a founding investor of HandyLab when it started in 1999.

�It wouldn�t have existed without EDF, and Wolverine was part of that,� said Tom Kinnear, executive director of the Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the U-M Ross School of Business. �We were there Day One when they were first founded.�

Read the rest of the story here.

In the News

Ann Arbor VC funds reap big returns from HandyLab sale

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