Cuyahoga County non-profit groups, incubators and investment funds will receive $9.7 million to spend cultivating and assisting young companies - making Northeast Ohio the beneficiary of most of the $11 million in start-up grants announced Wednesday.
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Cuyahoga County non-profit groups, incubators and investment funds will receive $9.7 million to spend cultivating and assisting young companies - making Northeast Ohio the beneficiary of most of the $11 million in start-up grants announced Wednesday.
The Ohio Third Frontier Commission approved the grants, part of a state program that doles out money to help promising companies attract additional dollars and to move new technologies and products to market more quickly.
Wednesday's awards will bolster technology and biomedical growth in Northeast Ohio. The Cleveland Clinic Foundation received $2 million to invest in nascent biomedical companies. JumpStart Inc., a non-profit group based in Cleveland, received more than $5.7 million to put toward promising start-ups, bio-science companies and businesses owned by women and minorities. And North Coast Angel Fund II LLC, an investment fund based in Mayfield Heights, won $2 million to invest in technology companies.
"With the Third Frontier funds awarded today to JumpStart and other entities in Northeast Ohio, the region's entrepreneurs will continue to have access to critical resources they need to accelerate the growth of their companies and jobs," Ray Leach, JumpStart's chief executive officer, wrote in an e-mail after the announcements. "This is great news for Northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs and for our community at large."
The remaining $1.3 million in start-up awards went to Columbus-area investment funds.
State officials also announced $20 million in awards for research collaborations and $2 million in funding for a southwest Ohio company that makes products for the aerospace and defense industries.
Two Cuyahoga County projects won part of that $20 million research pool, through the Wright Projects Program, which is designed to connect growing industries, such as alternative energy and biomedicine, with the state's nonprofit research institutions, colleges and universities. The local recipients are:
-- Case Western Reserve University: $2.1 million for a collaboration focused on using non-embryonic cord-blood stem cells for cellular therapy.
-- The Cleveland Clinic: $3 million to help develop, test, make and sell mobility-related products for patients who have heart problems, degenerative nerve diseases, metabolic diseases or skeletal and muscular problems.
