Entrepreneurship : Buzz

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Join other industry experts at the 2012 19th Annual NASVF Conference "Advancing Innovation: Seeding Tomorrow’s Opportunities” which will take place in Cleveland, Ohio October 15th -17th. Register here.

The Ohio Capital Fund, Ohio Venture Association, JumpStart, TechColumbus and CincyTech are working to plan the Great Lakes Venture Fair for October 17-18th in downtown Cleveland.

This day-and-a-half event will be a fast-paced gathering for investors and entrepreneurs, featuring the highest potential entrepreneurs and their venture-backable companies from Ohio and the Midwest.

Starting Wednesday afternoon immediately following the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds meeting, the Venture Fair will feature early stage opportunities and a reception in the evening. The following day, the program will include presentations showcasing the best of the region's vigorous startup and investment activity and driving the conversation around building future growth.

The GLVF builds upon momentum driven by seven successful years of The Ohio Capital Fund's Early Stage Summit programs.

Click here for complete conference information and registration.

"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."

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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.

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The economy has young people boomeranging back to flyover country cities to live cheap and chase their dreams. Read the full article 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.

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For the past five years, UT has been an active member of BioOhio, a nonprofit bioscience membership and development organization committed to connecting demand for biological products and services with Ohio entities that can fill those needs.

The UT Technology Transfer Office, BioOhio and other organizations play a critical role in connecting the University’s research initiatives to companies with the knowledge, experience and financial stability to bring the fruits of that research to the marketplace.

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To hear it from venture capitalist David Wilhelm, Athens is an emerging bell cow in Appalachia for entrepreneurship and technology investment.

Wilhelm, an Ohio University grad who served as chair of the Democratic National Committee in 1993-94, has managed campaigns for Bill Clinton, Paul Simon, Joe Biden and Richard M. Daley, and who now runs a venture capital firm, keynoted the BioVenture & Innovation Showcase at OU on Thursday.

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Last year, more than $710 million in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) flowed into Ohio by way of its major research institutes including the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State, Battelle, OhioHealth and the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s. The state ranked 10th in the nation in NIH funding, which is a closely watched metric in academic, business and political circles.  Now civic, business and economic development leaders are focusing their attentions on how to translate these research dollars into jobs and revenue.  Click here to read the full article.

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.