After more than 25 years of entrepreneurism and talent development efforts across Cincinnati, Indian-born tech entrepreneur Mahendra Vora is making yet another investment in the region.
Vora has just launched the new Vora Innovation Center in Blue Ash that houses several Vora companies, with additional incubator space and high tech meeting and demonstration areas.
It's the new HQ for The Vora Group and Vora's flagship
Ascendum, a global information technology (IT) solutions company. Also housed in the Innovation Center are three of his Vora Group holding companies
Bluespring Software,
Vinimaya, a cloud-based advanced procurement optimization company and a social search engine company
Zakta.com.
Vora has helped co-found and sell many successful tech companies over the last two decades. He also co-founded the
Vora Technology Park in Hamilton, one the largest technology parks in the country. Among his most successful and well-known companies was Intelliseek which he founded in the late 1990s. Intelliseek was a search company that measured word of mouth marketing. It was acquired by Buzzmetrics, now known as
Nielsen.
The Innovation Center employs more than 250. Its companies count a number of Fortune 100 businesses as clients, including Kroger and Great American Financial. About half of the 43,000-square-foot building is occupied with plans for expansion that include 250 new employees in the areas of software design, development, testing and quality assurance.
In addition to housing Vora Group companies, part of the Innovation Center space is being developed as a solutions center where companies can try out and share the latest technologies. First of its kind in the region, the solutions center is designed to be open, modern and collaborative.
Vora's vision for the center is as a place that will retain and develop local tech talent.
"We have the raw talent here," Vora said. "But what is lacking (compared to the East and West coasts) is opportunity and exposure. We can create an environment here in Cincinnati where the next hot social media or mobile company can be built."
Source: Mahendra Vora, Vora Innovation Center
Writer: Feoshia Henderson
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@feoshiawritesThis story originally appeared in hiVelocity's sister publication Soapbox.