The Accel­er­ate Michi­gan Inno­va­tion Com­pe­ti­tion has been orga­nized to pro­mote entre­pre­neur­ship and the devel­op­ment of early stage com­pa­nies by encour­ag­ing sub­mis­sion of plans of orig­i­nal busi­ness con­cepts that will lead to the devel­op­ment of new growth businesses.

Eli­gi­bil­ity

The Accel­er­ate Michi­gan Inno­va­tion Com­pe­ti­tion is open to any early stage busi­ness — from any­where in the world.

What we’re look­ing for are com­pa­nies that have a strong tech­nol­ogy or con­cept and seri­ous growth potential.

If you think that $500,000 would give your com­pany the boost to move it to the next level – please apply to compete.

Please con­tact us at info@acceleratemichigan.org if you have any questions.

We’re look­ing for the appli­cants to have some of the attrib­utes below. Please note that these are not rigid cri­te­ria, they’re a loose set of guidelines.

Tech­nol­ogy

  • Inno­v­a­tive and proven (past proof of concept)
  • At a com­mer­cial stage

Com­pa­nies will select to com­pete in one of 9 sectors:

  • Advanced Mate­ri­als
  • Advanced Trans­porta­tion
  • Alter­na­tive Energy
  • Defense & Home­land Security
  • Infor­ma­tion Technology
  • Life Sci­ence
  • Med­ical Devices
  • Next Gen­er­a­tion Manufacturing
  • Prod­ucts and Services

Finance

  • Poten­tial to achieve $10+ mil­lion in annual rev­enue in the next five years
  • Have raised no more than $2 million

Please note: US Com­pa­nies need to sup­ply their EIN. While there are many great lifestyle busi­nesses (for exam­ple: bou­tiques, cafes, con­sult­ing firms), Accel­er­ate Michi­gan is tar­geted at innovation-based, technology-led com­pa­nies. If you have ques­tions about eli­gi­bil­ity, please send them to info@acceleratemichigan.org. With the excep­tion of the “People’s Choice” and “Tweet” awards, prize win­ners must have the win­ning busi­ness reg­is­tered and located in the state of Michi­gan. For win­ners not cur­rently located in the state of Michi­gan to receive the award you must relo­cate your busi­ness to Michigan.

Rules

  1. Busi­ness plans can only be sub­mit­ted once and in only one sec­tor category.
  2. There is no limit on the num­ber of peo­ple on a team, but only three may attend the finals.
  3. Each busi­ness plan must be sub­mit­ted in an indi­vid­ual sec­tor track.
  4. All appli­ca­tions must be the orig­i­nal work of those mak­ing the submission.
  5. All semi-finalists (with the excep­tion of the “People’s Choice” and “Tweet” awards),must agree that, should they be cho­sen as a final­ist or win­ner, they will use prize win­nings to estab­lish or con­tinue busi­ness oper­a­tions in Michi­gan. For win­ners not cur­rently located in the state of Michi­gan to receive the award you must relo­cate your busi­ness to Michigan.
  6. Exist­ing busi­nesses may pro­pose a new busi­ness that would have oper­a­tions in Michigan.
  7. Par­tially com­pleted appli­ca­tions will not be accepted. Online appli­ca­tions for the com­pany com­pe­ti­tion are due by mid­night East­ern Time on August 10, 2011.
  8. Appli­cants risk dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion if they attempt to approach a judge, or have some­one do that on their behalf, in con­nec­tion with the competition.
  9. The deci­sions of the judges are final, includ­ing inter­pre­ta­tion of the rules.
  10. Accel­er­ate Michi­gan shall be held harm­less in the event of any legal action.
  11. Accel­er­ate Michi­gan takes no respon­si­bil­ity for agree­ments between com­pe­ti­tion par­tic­i­pants and third parties.
  12. Accel­er­ate Michi­gan takes no part in and has no lia­bil­ity for the domes­tic or inter­na­tional intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights of com­pe­ti­tion par­tic­i­pants. Par­tic­i­pants are respon­si­ble for their own intel­lec­tual prop­erty. Par­tic­i­pants must keep con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion con­fi­den­tial. For more detail see the Con­fi­den­tial­ity & IP section.
  13. Entry mate­ri­als become the prop­erty of Accel­er­ate Michigan.
  14. Par­tic­i­pants who engage in immoral activ­i­ties, includ­ing lying and cheat­ing, or any activ­ity that may adversely affect the image of Accel­er­ate Michi­gan or other par­tic­i­pants, become inel­i­gi­ble for the Competition.
  15. All work and sub­mis­sions of Entrants must be orig­i­nal to the Entrant/team.
  16. All par­tic­i­pants must com­ply with the rules. Any vio­la­tion of the rules will dis­qual­ify an Entrant’s team from the com­pe­ti­tion, and result in for­fei­ture of any awards awarded to the team.
  17. The $500,000 Grand Prize con­sists of $250,000 as a cash award and $250,000 as a con­vert­ible note.

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