It’s an exciting time to be in Detroit. In 2024 alone, we’ve seen the restoration of Michigan Central, a century-old train station turned mobility innovation hub; hosted the NFL Draft with record-breaking attendance; and attracted billions of dollars in commercial and public space development.
At TechTown, we celebrate all the fresh momentum while also focusing our attention on the community that was here long before the grand openings and splashy headlines. In fact, one of our strengths as a city is that there was already plenty of foundation to help draw in the new while still elevating what’s been here all along.
In the entrepreneurship space, TechTown’s track record runs decades deep. We’re focused on using entrepreneurship to help break cycles of intergenerational poverty and create equitable community wealth. We’ve been in the game for a long time, and we’re dedicated to ensuring that our clients represent our community.
People of color make up more than 80% of Detroit’s population, and women are in the majority. Our client portfolio follows suit with 85% people of color and 65% using she/her pronouns. Detroit has thriving immigrant communities contributing to our local economy, and our programs and services support them too, to the tune of 11% of our portfolio.
At TechTown, we’re not chasing the unicorn startup, and yet big successes still hit – like Livegistics, a cloud-based workflow automation software company specializing in waste and material management that won the million-dollar Black Ambition Prize from Pharrell Williams in 2021 and closed a $6 million seed investment in 2022.
That’s the kind of entrepreneurship you see in Detroit – businesses that solve real challenges and contribute to real communities.
Justin Turk is the CEO and co-founder of Livegistics. Detroit is his hometown, and his success is a prime example of creating equitable community wealth through entrepreneurship. Justin is also now a TechTown Board member – because we don’t just want to serve entrepreneurs of color, we want them at the table helping to steer our work.
And that kind of inclusive approach is why you’ll find Detroit’s brand of innovation to be not just style, but plenty of substance too.
