March 4, 2011 - Mlive

As part of a group of five venture capital groups, The Charter Group helped raised $5 million to get pharmaceutical pilot plant Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing certified and opened in exchange for a more than 80 percent interest in the facility. Investors include Indianapolis-based Pearl Street Venture Funds, GRAM Acquisition LLC (spearheaded by The Charter Group), Grand Angels, Grand River Aseptic — Carter Group and Eagle Creek Capital. Dale Grogan, Vice President, The Charter Group, said getting the facility online is a watershed event in the region’s effort to grow its life sciences industry. “It’s critical that we recognize this was a really important deal for Grand Rapids in terms of high-tech life-sciences business,” he said. “The second thing is this transaction brought external venture capital and external management into Grand Rapids to help business here.” more