Venture Capital : Buzz

"For investors looking to go off the beaten track to find quality deals, Ohio might be the answer," Mitchell Rosich, partner at Athenian Venture Partners, writes in VentureBeat.

"According to the most recent Ohio Venture Capital Report, venture capital activity in Ohio was up more than 80 percent in 2010, surpassing the national average, which was up only 20 percent."

Read the rest here.

Michael Goldberg, a professor at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and a managing partner of a venture capital fund that invests in early stage medical device companies, certainly has a bevy of knowledge and experience to share with others. He is currently taking some time off teaching in Cleveland to focus his attention on a different part of the world. 

In this article, published in Vietnam, he urges Vietnamese entrepreneurs to dream and take risks.

A few years ago, when Bryan Jowers and Justin Stanislaw were dreaming up an app to help friends pool money to give gifts, they felt they needed to leave Houston to improve their chances of finding investors and forging connections. Instead of relocating to a Silicon Valley hotspot, they moved to Cincinnati, lured by a startup accelerator called The Brandery. As one of six startups participating in the summer of 2010, they got 12 weeks of intensive help building their product, called Giftiki.

Read the full story here.

Nearly $1.5 billion was raised for over a million different campaigns around the world last year by 452 different crowdfunding sites, according to a recent industry report from research firm Massolution.

That number is expected to grow exponentially once US regulators approve a recently-passed law that allows regular people to buy stock in a startup company using crowdfunding.

Read the full story here.

You don’t need to put down roots in New York or Silicon Valley to thrive in business today. John Dearborn, president of the nonprofit VC JumpStart Inc., offers three tips for maximizing resources in a mid-sized city. Read the full story here.

TechColumbus announced this week its commitment to invest $500,000 from its Pre-Seed Fund in Nanofiber Solutions LLC to advance innovations in cell culture technologies and regenerative medicine. Click here to read the full article.

On Wednesday, April 18, the crowdfunding industry’s 13 top debt and equity crowdfunding platforms and industry experts met to create a Statement of Intent for a lasting organization that will champion, advocate for, and represent the global crowdfunding industry. Two days later, this group—the Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Association, or CFIRA—presented its Statement of Intent to the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).  CFIRA’s complete Statement of Intent can be found on www.Crowdsourcing.org.

Manta, the largest online community dedicated entirely to small business, announced that it has received a $44 million minority equity investment from Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), a leading global investment firm. Read the full story here.

The Ohio State University and Ohio University are partnering to create a new commercialization and funding model. They have committed $35 million in total to the formation of a venture capital fund designed to meet early-stage funding needs of innovative technology ventures. Read the full story here.

TechColumbus’ fifth annual report to the community highlights the progress Central Ohio has made in cultivating talent, catalyzing new businesses and creating the type of entrepreneurial ecosystem that is driving the region’s success in the 21st century global economy. Read the full story here.

The Angel Capital Association (ACA) and Angel Resource Institute (ARI) have named John Huston as the recipient of the 2012 Hans Severiens Award. For more info, click here.

The new Blackbook app helps Cincinnati residents and new hires create a customized guide to their city based on their preferences. Check out the story here.