Makers Environment Fund prepares for Michigan launch!

Natalie Hazen is excited about her new fund launch that will provide investment capital to skilled trade organizations in Michigan.

Natalie is a resident of Midland, Michigan and plans to oversee the operations in partnership with Impact T3 and Gingras Global. Hazen's inspiration took root when helping to assess organizations such as  the Welding Artisan Center in Detroit and Detroit Sewn in Pontiac. As she discovered the capital gap for skilled trade organizations, she began to search for capital pools friendly to this type of manufacturing.

"The reality is that these are not sexy technology companies that can scale and become the next venture capital dream, these are skilled trades such as welding, auto mechanics, industrial sewing, and types of farming and construction. The Michigan employers need the basic and intermediate labor pools but have to outsource to other states. We need to create jobs and I decided I needed to step-up and see if I could help."

Hazen pointedly decided that the potential portfolio companies would need to have three characteristics to apply for investment from the fund:

1) they have to teach and employ a skilled trade

2) the skilled trade must fill a current labor pool gap for Michigan employers

3) the employees must be provided with a time for innovation during their work month

The fund will open in January of 2017 for investor contributions and will be regulated as a 506(b) offering which is only available to accredited investors. The investment ask will be a minimum of $20,000 and will have the option to spread that out over a 4 year period.

Hazen says this will be patient capital meaning that the investors will be unlikely to see any financial returns for the first 5 or 6 years but intends to target a 4% annual average for the member investors. 

For more information on this fund, please contact Natalie Hazen at natalie@makersefund.com