LIVONIA – Inventev, a new Detroit-based company that brings mobile power generation to commercial fleets using medium-duty trucks, won first place and a check for $5000 in the MiQuest business plan competition Thursday night. MiQuest is the former Great Lakes Entrepreneurs Quest.

First place in the New Business Ideas category went to Kalamazoo-based Micro-LAM Technologies, which provides a better surface and reduces tooling and finishing costs for companies that would benefit from the softening of hard materials and reduced brittleness during machining. The company received a check for $2000.

Great Lakes Entrepreneur?s Quest announced Thursday it had merged with the Small Business Association of Michigan Foundation to create MiQuest. See story Here

The awards were made at the Annual Collaboration for Entrepreneurship at Burton Manor in Livonia. Some one thousand people attended and also heard the ACE Elevator Pitch Competition, which was won by Native Traits of Kalamazoo. The company is developing native genetic traits that make corn resistant to drought. Founder James Friedrich received a trophy.

Other candidates vying for the trophy were Jeff Johnson, Supported Intelligence, LLC of East Lansing; Michael Kurley, Soletics of Grand Rapids; Ansgar Strother, A2B Bikeshare of Ann Arbor, Naren Balasubramaniam, Hospital Connect of Farmington Hills; Jason Beale, RegainGo of Detroit; and James Friedrich, Native Traits, LLC of Kalamazoo.

Judges included Lauren Bigelow, CEO, Growth Capital Network; Terry Cross, founder, Windward Associates, LLC; Dale Grogan, managing director, Michigan Accelerator Fund; and Mark E. Hooper, CPA, founding member, Andrews Hooper Pavlik and board member, Capital Community Angels, Inc.

Business Plan Competition

More than 200 Michigan-based entrepreneurial ventures were registered for the GLEQ Business Plan competition, which attracts a wide-range of innovation-base businesses in fields such as alternative energy, information technology and software, advanced manufacturing, food safety, green chemistry, medical devices and life sciences. The competition?s twice-annual program accommodates both idea-stage ventures and companies with up to $3 million in cumulative sales.

Award winners in the Emerging Company category are:

First Place Award – $5,000. Inventev. Represented by Dave Stenson, founder/CEO, Inventev, through a patent-pending drive system, uses the same devices that electrically propel the vehicle to generate power for electrically-driven accessories on a job site. Electric utilities and telecommunication providers, for example, need a source of electric power at job sites without the fuel use, emissions, and noise of extensive idling or the expense of trailer-mounted generators. Additionally, Michigan Growth Capital Symposium awarded a presentation slot for Inventev at the MGCS event in June.

Second Place Award – $3,000. PHASIQ, Inc. Represented by Arlyne Simon, PhD, co-founder and VP Technology Development, Plymouth-based PHASIQ provides an ultra-specific diagnostic platform for detecting protein biomarkers in biological samples. PHASIQ?s next-generation technology addresses the shortcomings of protein microarray technologies, namely accuracy and cost of test development, which are necessary to advance the use of protein microarrays in life science research and clinical diagnostics.

Third Place Award – $2,500. Campus Commandos. Represented by Adam Grant, CEO, Detroit-based Campus Commandos is a campus marketing firm that helps major brands like HP, eBay and Nike sell products to college students through student ambassador programs. These programs often experience difficulty in recruiting, high turnover, and poor student performance. To address those issues, the company is launching a mobile application that organizes a large pool of available candidates and motivates them to accept and complete marketing tasks by using challenging game-based incentives.

Award winners in the New Business Ideas category are:

First Place Award – $2,000. Micro-LAM Technologies, LLC. Represented by Deepak Ravindra, PhD, co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, Kalamazoo-based Micro-LAM offers leading edge technology that increases productivity, provides a better surface and reduces tooling and finishing costs for companies that would benefit from the softening of hard materials and reduced brittleness during machining. The company provides an easily adaptable tool that delivers precision machining capabilities for ceramics, semiconductors, glass and metals, leading to greater efficiency and improved profitability.

Second Place Award – $1,500. Sentinl, LLC. Represented by Omer Kiyani, founder/CEO, Detroit-based Sentinl offers IDENTILOCK?, a new and safe way to secure hand guns. Using fingerprint technology, it allows for split-second access to a loaded gun by the gun owner, while simultaneously keeping it safely locked and unusable when in the hands of others. Sentinl was coached by Stew Nelson.

Third Place Award – $1,000. Wave Aircraft, Inc. Represented by Perry DiClemente, founder, West Bloomfield-based Wave Aircraft shortens total travel time with a specially designed aircraft. Amphibian planes do not fly high and fast. High and fast business class aircraft cannot land on water. By combining the best features of both, Wave Aircraft is the first to offer the business-class market a single aircraft that will go virtually anywhere, land anywhere, and get there fast. Wave Aircraft was coached by Scott First Place Award – $2,000. Micro-LAM Technologies, LLC. Represented by Deepak Ravindra, PhD, co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, Kalamazoo-based Micro-LAM offers leading edge technology that increases productivity, provides a better surface and reduces tooling and finishing costs for companies that would benefit from the softening of hard materials and reduced brittleness during machining.

Additional GLEQ Business Plan Competition Awards

Vision to Action Challenge Award. YouKnowWatt, founders Steven Sherman and Jack Dean were awarded the Vision to Action Challenge Award, for having achieved significant milestones in advancing their venture. The founders clearly articulated a vision for their company and identified strategic challenges they are facing and put a plan in place to address those challenges. The Ann Arbor-based company is a startup in the residential energy efficiency market. The company?s go-to-market product is a software service called Energ.io for home performance professionals (energy auditors and general contractors) to optimize their relationship with homeowners and strengthen their close rate. The YouKnowWatt team was coached by Richard Miga.

GLEQ Coach Recognition Award. Nancy Mathias, a professional, credentialed business coach, was awarded the GLEQ Coach Recognition Award for her volunteer work with early stage ventures in the GLEQ Business Plan Competition. Her firm, Birmingham-based Focus Leadership Development LLC, provides individual, team and organizational development, strategic visioning, training programs, and meeting facilitation. Her clients include for-profit corporations, non-profit organizations and professional associations. She coached University Pharmacy in this round of the competition.

GLEQ Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award. Rich Daniels, founder/CEO of Dowagiac-based RNS Packaging received The Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award. He was nominated by his business coach, Fred Pieplow, of St. Joseph, who applauded Daniels? openness to coaching and his non-stop enthusiasm for the FunPak Premium Packaging product he created. His loose-fill packaging is 100 percent biodegradable, 100% compostable, and uniquely marketable. It does away with toxic, static Stryrofoam packing peanuts and non-sustainable plastic air pouches. Daniels is a Desert Storm veteran and is committed to hiring veterans and producing a product that is safe for our families, pets and planet.

Winning ventures were selected by 85 volunteer judges, including venture capitalists; angel investors; university-based tech transfer, engineering and business staff; and economic and business development professionals.

The GLEQ awards were presented by Sam Hogg, Venture Partner, Open Prairie Ventures; Ken Kousky, president, BlueWater Angels; Kevin Suboski, Coach Advocate, MiQuest; and Miche Suboski, Managing Director, MiQuest.

MiQuest president, Diane Durance, announced the spring 2014 GLEQ Business Plan Competition will open for registrations on Monday, February 10.

Vision to Action Challenge Award

Steven Sherman and Jack Dean, YouKnowWatt founders, Ann Arbor

GLEQ Coach Recognition Award

Nancy Mathias, Focus Leadership Development LLC owner, Birmingham

GLEQ Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award

Rich Daniels, founder/CEO of RNS Packaging, Dowagiac