Bedrock’s real estate footprint gives it an advantage when it comes to working with startups.
Bedrock, Atlanta-based Orange Sparkle Ball and NoHo Hospitality recently launched an autonomous robot that collects food waste from local restaurants and transports it to the Urban Tech Xchange — all of which are located in Bedrock-owned buildings.
Another DVP investment, Santa Monica-headquartered Metropolis Technologies, is known for its parking operations. Cory Tincher, senior associate at DVP, said following the firm’s investment in the company, it deployed at Bedrock’s parking garages around the city.
Mull hopes to see Bedrock support innovators through their careers in Detroit, from housing their startups to finding homes, and eventually opening an office in a Bedrock commercial office building.
For example, the Detroit Smart Parking Lab housed Alba Robot and It’s Electric, both of which have since established offices in Detroit. It’s Electric, a Brooklyn-based startup, is installing 25 curbside electric vehicle charging stations in Detroit by the end of this year. Alba Robot moved to the DSPL from Italy and now has an office in Newlab at Michigan Central.
Detroit Venture Partners is also taking a hands-on approach to attract talent to Michigan. Tincher said that while the firm has never made an investment contingent on a company relocating to Michigan, it does sell the city in other ways.
“We made a pitch to them for why Detroit might make sense and then we said, ‘Don’t take our word for it. Come see it,’” Tincher said.
DVP hosts the startup in the city for several days and introduces them to other members of the community.
“Detroit is one of those places where you have to come here to really get it, because you can read every article that’s out there, but until you see it, you won’t understand it,” Tincher said.
Continuing to strengthen its innovation community is one of the several ways Michigan can continue to improve and attract founders, BAMF Health founder and CEO Anthony Chang said during a panel at the Reindustrialize summit on Thursday.
“In order to retain the startups ready to scale, we need to have a high-quality workforce and high-quality work … So we need to start really investing in health care, really invest into education at all of the levels in order to develop the local high-quality workforce. This will retain startups and attract more talent coming in, and start creating this flywheel.”
Mull also hopes the Reindustrialize summit being hosted at Hudson’s Detroit will be an initial stepping stone for founders and entrepreneurs to look deeper into Detroit.
“You can change people’s minds one at a time, and that works, but it takes a long time, when you can bring 1,000 people and try to change their mind over the course of a day or two,” Mull said.
Editor’s note: The original version of this report incorrectly stated where the Reindustrialize event took place. This version is correct.