Michigan’s “Accelerate Blue Fund” makes first investment after reaching first close
The “Accelerate Blue Fund,” a University of Michigan early stage venture fund raised through philanthropy, has reached its first fundraising milestone and made its first investment in a U-M tech start-up.
According to this announcement, the recipient of the fund’s first investment of $150,000 is Movellus Inc., which provides technology to boost semiconductor chip design for cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other applications. Movellus, based in San Jose, CA with operations in Ann Arbor, launched in 2016 with help from U-M’s Office of Technology Transfer.
“Accelerate Blue” is an evergreen fund which was officially approved to raise at least $20 million by the Regents of the University of Michigan in October 2019. It reached its initial fundraising goal of $2 million in early 2021. That puts it in the position to start making investments of between $10,000 and $200,000 in U-M tech startups.
The fund is designed to support the attraction of business leadership, speed U-M tech start-ups to commercial success, and shorten the gap to securing additional venture capital by providing early risk-tolerant investments and leveraging the resources of U-M and the Office of Tech Transfer. All investment returns will go back into the fund for future investments in new U-M start-ups.
