CloudAccess.net recently competed in the 2012 Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, “an international business plan competition designed to highlight Michigan as a robust and vibrant venue for innovation and business opportunity.” The competition was managed by Ann Arbor Spark and sponsored by Automation Alley, TechTown and Macomb-OU INCubator. With $1 million in prizes, the Detroit Free Press has called the competition “the biggest business plan competition of its kind.”
Charlie Hague, CFO, and Ryan "The Professor" Bernstein made the trip to Detroit to represent the company and deliver the pitch. They practiced for weeks leading up to the event and felt really good about making the final round of the competition after the initial 10 minute presentation. Ryan gave the pitch and both Ryan and Charlie answered questions for the judges for 15 minutes following the presentation.
53 Michigan-based companies were invited to take part in the competition held on November 13th, 14th and 15th at the historic Westin Book Cadillac hotel in downtown Detroit, and making the competition is an accomplishment in itself. CloudAccess.net was chosen from over 300 applicants to be one of the companies to present a 10 minute investment pitch to a panel of judges and anyone else interested in learning more about the company. We were lucky to have several Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center consultants including John Balbach, Jason Pliml, Sandra Cochrane, Joe Battinger and Mary Rogers give us continual feedback as we prepared and we also presented to a group of local business people in the Traverse City area.
Traverse City was represented strongly with two companies in the semi-final round, CloudAccess.net and HireStarts, a social networking company for college students and potential employers. Two Traverse City student companies, 45th Parallel Lighting and The All Out Gaming Center, also made the semi-final round of the student competition.
Although CloudAccess.net wasn't selected to be a finalist, we had a great time at the event, made dozens of great connections, learned about some other great Michigan-based companies and had some fun in the process. The timing of this competition could not have been any more perfect for CloudAccess.net because we have recently transitioned out of start-up phase and into a rapid growth phase. We were already in the process of refining our business plan and company documentation to take advantage of the JOBS Act with a 506 Regulation D preferred share offering. We’d like to thank everyone involved with the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, and we look forward to competing again in 2013!