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About:

JumpStart is a nationally recognized venture development organization that accelerates the progress of high potential, early-stage businesses and includes a special focus on diverse entrepreneurs working in the highest growth industries. Through the depth of its entrepreneurial team and the breadth of its high value resources, JumpStart improves client success in achieving significant milestones, including raising the follow-on capital necessary to create wealth. JumpStart strives to create a more prosperous future for Northeast Ohio.

Fund Support:

$12.8 million

Performance:

JumpStart has committed more than $22 million in 63 companies which have raised more than $231 million in follow-on capital. It has also helped hundreds of other entrepreneurs by providing a variety of business consulting services and hands-on, intensive assistance. Together, JumpStart's clients and portfolio companies have $463 million.  JumpStart is ranked among the nation’s top most active early-stage investments funds, and its model is being recognized nationally for strengthening the regional entrepreneurial climate.

2012 Update:

  • Goldman Sachs selected JumpStart as a partner of its 10,000 Small Businesses program at Cuyahoga Community College. The program is designed to help local small business owners create jobs and economic opportunity through greater access to business education, financial capital and business support services.  In Cleveland, Goldman Sachs and the Goldman Sachs Foundation will invest a combined total of $15 million, including $5 million in grants to support business education and $10 million in capital to support the area’s diverse small business. Classes begin in the fall of 2012. To learn more about the program in Northeast Ohio or to sign up for a May or June information session, visit www.tri-c.edu/10ksbapply .
  • The Innovation Fund awarded $400,000 to seven Northeast Ohio tech startups: Campus Shift ($25,000, Akron), CellBank Technologies ($25,000, Beachwood), Quixby ($25,000, Akron), ScoreFeeder ($25,000, Hudson), TIP Imaging ($100,000, Shaker Heights), via680, LLC ($100,000, Youngstown) and Zuga Medical ($100,000, Beachwood).
  • JumpStart Partner LeanDog Software Studio launched LeanDog Labs to share their expertise and serve as a delivery partner to tech startups in need. LeanDog hopes to help entrepreneurs grow their companies more quickly by helping to build early-stage concepts that validate their market at competitive rates.
  • JumpStart CEO Ray Leach attened the signing of the bi-partisan Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act on April 5 at the White House. The act is designed to make it easier for business owners to take their companies public and removes some regulatory barriers to investment in startups and small businesses. As a member of the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE), Leach was part of a group that recommended language for the legislation.
  • JumpStart received $5,000 from Ulmer & Berne to support JumpStart’s work in accelerating the region’s entrepreneurs.
  • JumpStart made a second $250,000 commitment to Securus Medical Group which is developing clinical tools to monitor core body temperature within body cavities. Its technology will provide clinicians with a simple to use, real-time, noncontact, thermal map of body cavity tissue temperature. This information will guide the physician to achieve the desired clinical outcome without risk of injury to surrounding tissue.
  • Life Core Technologies is JumpStart’s 63rd portfolio company! JumpStart invested $250,000 in the medical device company that has developed a novel approach to selectively cooling the brain thereby inducing mild therapeutic hypothermia. Therapeutic hypothermia protects patients from ischemic and re-perfusion injury effects of cardiac arrest, heart attack, stroke and traumatic brain injury.
  • JumpStart’s Lynn-Ann Gries presented with Bad Girl Ventures, Arianna Huffington and others as part of CBC Magazine’s Female Entrepreneur Summit on April 25.
  • Recently published Huffington Post blog: The Oscars of Entrepreneurship by Cathy Belk
  • Braintree Business Incubator announced the launch of Tech Sprout, providing small amounts of funding to help entrepreneurs turn high-tech ideas into viable businesses. The program grants up to $6,000 to future Braintree tenants and up to $2,000 for qualifying early stage tech companies throughout the 21 counties of Northeast Ohio.
  • Akron Global Business Accelerator tenant Summit Data Communications was acquired in deal valued at $22M. 
  • Cloud-based mobile support company Intelligent Mobile Support has raised more than $500,000 from NCAF, Shaker LaunchHouse and JumpStart. The revenue-positive, cash-flow positive company is still in fundraising mode.
  • Neurodevice company, Checkpoint Surgical, raised a $1.7 million Series B round and received the CE mark for its state-of-the-art intraoperative neuroprotective stimulator that helps surgeons locate, identify and evaluate nerve and muscle excitability during surgery to facilitate nerve preservation and repair.
  • Shift-scheduling software company OnShift has had 400% increase in revenue, is up to 36 employees and closed $3 million in Series B financing. The company just announced the newest release of its staff scheduling and shift management which introduces Staff Extend open shift recruiting and management capabilities that enable long-term care and senior living providers to fill shifts by accessing and sharing employees from neighboring locations and enhanced reporting and analytics.
  • Third Frontier is releasing money to Youngstown State University and Polyflow, an Akron-based cleantech portfolio company that has developed a technology to recycle mixed dirty plastics and rubber waste. The money will be used to build and demonstrate a 2.5-ton capacity "waste-to-fuel processor."
  • Stephen Spoonamore, CEO of ABSMaterials, was named NorTech's 2012 Regional Impact Award winner.
  • Received a $1,000,000 challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to build regional economic partnerships that foster entrepreneurship and create jobs through the JumpStart America initiative.
  • Awarded $20,000 from the Charter One Foundation to support JumpStart’s work with diverse entrepreneurs.
  • Made a second investment in Juventas Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing a pipeline of regenerative therapies to treat life-threatening diseases.
  • Hosted one public forum and two open online sessions to plan for Northeast Ohio’s proposal to Ohio Third Frontier for tech services. More than 130 people representing dozens of organizations participated. Ultimately submitted with 37 partners for $20.5 million.
  • The Burton D. Morgan Foundation and the Blackstone Charitable Foundation announced a combined $3.2 million investment to establish an innovative on-campus program, Blackstone LaunchPad, at Case Western Reserve University, Baldwin-Wallace College, Kent State University and Lorain County Community College. Blackstone LaunchPad exposes students and faculty to the idea of starting entrepreneurial ventures and provides support to help them get new businesses off the ground.
  • The Youngstown Business Incubator announced that funds from HUD, the City of Youngstown and the Youngstown Foundation will enable the Incubator to add 8,600 square feet.
  • Airway access device startup and LaunchHouse client company LifeServe Innovations received a $75,000 grant from the Innovation Fund. LifeServe has developed a patent-pending approach for performing Percutaneous Dilatational Tracheostomy (PDT) to provide long-term oxygenation to patients suffering from respiratory dysfunction.
  • Youngstown Business Incubator tenant Learning Egg launched its first product, Lightning Grader, a software application that enables educators to accurately grade up to 30 pages of tests per minute by using their schools’ photocopying machines.
  • CitizenGroove’s DecisionDesk was up for a $100k “Intel Innovators” Award that required Facebook votes. (CitizenGroove also announced it was opening offices in Lakewood, Ohio.)
  • Jack Hooks awarded $50K in business grants from Canton Entrepreneur Launch, a community fund that JumpStart helped the city create.
  • Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and MAGNET teamed up with NASA to boost innovative manufacturing in Northeast Ohio. NASA is offering its high-tech expertise free to small- and medium-size manufacturers in Northeast Ohio. The space agency will help the companies deal with technical problems with new or existing products. The county and city are also offering $50,000 low-interest loans to nine of the manufacturers.
  • SPR Therapeutics closed on $2.2 million Series A investment round that it will use as it works to win regulatory approval for a product designed to alleviate pain through neurostimulation. It has engaged an investment banking firm to look for strategic partnerships.
  • Cardiac mapping company CardioInsight Technologies filed regulatory documents indicating it has raised $1.6 million in convertible debt from 14 investors since May and $7.5 million in equity since January 2010.
  • Neuros Medical received an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It can now commence a pilot clinical trial to evaluate its patented high frequency Electrical Nerve Block™ technology for use in acute treatment of pain in the residual limb of amputees. The IDE approval builds off a successful first-in-human feasibility study earlier this year in which four out of five patients reported significant pain reduction, at times reducing pain scores to zero.
  • Segmint, which helps marketers deliver targeted offers by IDing customer spending patterns and Key Lifestyle Indicators, is moving to Akron. Segmint outgrew its Tallmadge office and is transferring its 22 full-time employees to a new facility in hopes of creating 81 jobs in the region over the next three years.
  • Cervilenz Inc. received its CE Mark and ISO 13485 Certification for its innovative medical device used to measure vaginal cervical length to help obstetricians identify and manage pregnant women at high risk for premature birth. The Northeast Ohio company now holds 12 issued patents, including five in the US, five in Europe, one in Japan, and one in Turkey. Ten additional applications are pending.
  • CerviLenz is teaming up with Interplex Medical LLC to introduce its product.  CerviLenz also presented at the 10th World Congress of Maternal and Neonatal Health.
  • Electron Database announced it was releasing alpha version of its database technology using industry standard SQL.
  • ABSMaterials began moving employees to new, bigger facility in Wooster. The cleantech company plans to add 90 new people in 1.5-3 years.
  • Regenerative medicine company Juventas Therapeutics reported that its stem cell therapy for heart failure is "inducing fundamental changes in the heart of treated patients” during its phase 1 clinical trial.
  • Entrepreneur and inclusion client Al "Bubba" Baker invents patented rib process and JumpStart’s Johnny Hutton helps him get the steaks into select Northeast Ohio Heinen’s locations.
  • Portfolio company Myers Motors produces small, eye-catching electric vehicles have range of 75-90 miles. Entrepreneur Dana Myers is raising $10 million toward getting the rechargeable autos into full production.
  • Cleantech company Polyflow was awarded a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for its proprietary process converting mixed plastic and rubber waste into transportation fuels and chemical intermediates. And another process and apparatus patent was issued by the Commissioner of Patents in Australia.
  • What do Smashbox, Hubspot, ShareThis, Mesocoat and ABSMaterials have in common? The Forbes 100 list: America’s Most Promising Companies. JumpStart portfolio companies Mesocoat (#50), who is a local advanced coating/cladding technology company, and ABSMaterials (#67), who develops reactive glass products and nanosands for remediation, gained the distinguished honor and joined the ranks of other great companies.The Weatherhead 100 recognizes the fastest growing companies in Northeast Ohio and Knotice made the list for the third year at #8 with a 547.43% increase in sales over 2010.  
  • Phycal President & CEO, Dr. Kevin Berner, made Biofuels Digest’s list of Top 100 People in Bioenergy (2011-2012).
  • Nortech Innovation Award finalists included many JumpStart client and portfolio companies like MesoCoat Inc., NuVention Solutions, Polyflow and Thermalin Diabetes.