Is Detroit The New Silicon Valley? Top Start Ups In The Motor City

According to recode.net, there are 100 start ups in Detroit, and they have attracted $770 million in private investment.

That's a lot of cash.

"When you think of the hub of technology, Silicon Valley probably comes to mind. But that's slowly changing, as more cities across the country become fast-growing technology hubs," Sarah K. White wrote in cio.com. And now, with Amazon's recent announcement that it plans to expand corporate offices to Detroit in 2016, the Motor City is poised to the next hot spot for tech."

Along with big money backing, some of these startups have innovative ideas that could change your corner of the world in one way or another.

Consider these:

Cribspot

Sending a kid to school and want to make sure they end up in a secure area? Cribspot helps college students and landlords find and manage off-campus housing. MORE HERE

Detroit Garment Group

Founded by Karen Buscemi, Detroit Garment Group is a registered 501(c) public charity meant to cultivate education and economic development opportunities for Michigan's fashion community, as well as cut and sew manufacturers of all industries. The goal is to make Michigan the state for the cut & sew industry through education, job creation, professional incubation and new-business attraction.

Are You Human?

This company places codes on websites that allows the operators of the site to screen out "bots." "Malicious bots commit ad fraud, scrape content and even post fake reviews," the company says. MORE HERE 

Duo Security

Easy two-factor authorization is promised by this start-up, which "protects your users from account takeovers and data breaches." They promise the authentication is "easy and painless." MORE HERE 

Detroit Labs

Detroit Labs makes mobile apps for other companies, and it's considered "the fastest-growing startup in Detroit proper, with more than 70 employees just four years after founding and customers including Domino's Pizza and Chevy," per recode. Detroit Labs brings in people who have no background in programming to participate in a three-month coding boot camp, from which it has hired some 22 of its employees.

LevelEleven

Trying to take a business to the next level? LevelEleven helps rally salespeople to perform better and gives sales managers a view into how well their teams are doing.  LevelEleven customers include Forrester Research, Symantec, ReadyTalk, Akamai, PayPal and about 200 more.

Locqus

Trying to track down a plumber when there's a geyser in the kitchen is less than ideal in terms of timing. Locqus aims to remove the hassle of looking for electricians, plumbers and notaries. "(It) basically makes local service businesses work like Uber. The 15-person company is only in the earliest stages of rolling out its tools, but it has signed up Samsung and payment processor Moneris as strategic partners, and is also working to partner with local search engines," recode writes.

Sentinl

This Detroit startup aims to attach fingerprint sensors to firearm triggers, so guns would unlock only for authorized users.

Quikly

Creating brand loyalty, engaging consumers and building a customer base are the goals this start up can help with. The program allows users to sign up to receive a text message, and urges them to reply as fast as they can. The faster you jump on the text, the better the reward you get. In one Quikly campaign for a fast-food restaurant, 50,000 people responded in 10 minutes. MORE HERE