The Grow Michigan investment fund has deployed a little more than half of its $60 million after making a handful of new loans to close out last year.
"I think we will be fully invested by the end of 2015," says Russell Youngdahl, Jr. CEO of
Grow Michigan. "We are not in a hurry to be fully invested. We are chasing quality with our loans."
The 2-year-old organization launched as a joint effort between the state’s Michigan Strategic Fund and a number of leading Michigan-based banks. It has invested in 19 Michigan-based companies for a total of $31.8 million since May of 2013, helping those companies leverage more than $200 million in financing. Those small businesses have hired a combined 380 new employees as a result of the loans and now employ nearly 2,000 people in Michigan.
"We are in the business of providing growth capital to lower-to-middle-market light manufacturers," Youngdahl says.
Grow Michigan made five loans totaling $11.1 million in the fourth quarter of last year. Three of those loans went to metro Detroit-based companies, such as Barracuda Industries (a Wixom-based specialty glass fabricator), Michigan Custom Machines (a Novi precision machine manufacturer), and PF Michigan Group (a Northville-based exclusive Michigan franchisee for health and fitness facilities).
The 19 loans Grow Michigan has made have touched eight different counties in Michigan. Of those loans, 11 were to metro Detroit-based companies, including six in Wayne County and five in Oakland County.
Source: Russell Youngdahl, Jr. CEO of Grow Michigan
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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