Developing Cleveland area businesses showed off their ideas, technologies and talents at the
2012 Northeast Ohio Entrepreneurial Expo and JumpStart Community Meeting on Tuesday, November 13 from 1 to 5:40 p.m. at CSU’s Wolstein Center.
“The theme is, ‘What’s next Northeast Ohio,’” says Samantha Fryberger, JumpStart director of communications. “The idea being, a lot of companies are really early in their development.”
The expo featured 96 area tech startups as well as 32 support organizations, such as
Bizdom,
Youngstown Business Incubator,
Shaker LaunchHouse,
Akron ARCHAngels and
Ohio Aerospace Institute. Nine student companies were also featured, one of which will be presented with an award at the event’s close.
The showcase was followed by a panel discussion featuring success stories of area companies that have grown into multi-million dollar businesses. “[These are] some of the biggest success stories who have merged, sold, been bought out or exited,” explains Fryberger.
Goldman Sachs representatives talked about its
10,000 Small Businesses program, followed by an announcement of JumpStart’s newest portfolio companies.
And of course, investors were also on hand to see what the next great thing is in the region. Fryberger says 25 investors attended the event last year, and she expected the same this year.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” says Fryberger. “It’s an opportunity to network. There are some of these companies who could help each other quite a bit. And if you’re very early in development, this is your first opportunity for exposure.”
Source: Samantha Fryberger
Writer: Karin Connelly