Cincinnati : Featured Stories

Cincinnati's thriving, bench-to-bedside health care ecosystem has nourished the success of many prominent startups, among them AtriCure, Blue Ash Therapeutics and AssureRx Health. These firms are growing the city's startup community, creating jobs and fostering the success of the entire region.

Every budding app developer wants to create an overnight success, yet in a saturated market, it's increasingly hard to for them to stand out and get noticed. Still, the longshot odds haven't stopped several industrious Ohioans from taking a whack at the crowded app space -- including our youngest entrepreneur, who is only seven years old.

Whether they are helping hospitals to manage access to private health information or creating a game that helps kids to zap away their health care fears, health care startups are growing in Cincinnati. Innov8forhealth, an accelerator now in its second year, is helping budding entrepreneurs to rapidly vet and commercialize their ideas.

Steve Case recently came to Cleveland to address entrepreneurial leaders from across the country who had gathered for the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds conference. After praising Ohio's innovation economy, he said that the key to creating more jobs in the U.S. is to support entrepreneurs and high-growth companies and argued policy leaders need to do more to spur innovation.

It's never been easier to validate an idea and launch a new company. Yet access to capital remains a critical issue for entrepreneurs. The upcoming National Association of Seed and Venture Funds Conference, to be held in Cleveland from October 15th-17th, will bring together a community of aspiring entrepeneurs and investors to explore ways to advance innovation capital.

If you're looking for evidence that venture capitalists are increasingly flocking to Ohio, look no further than the success of Athenian Venture Partners, whose 2003 AVP Ohio fund was recently ranked the top fund of its vintage by Preqin. That success is testament to the increasingly vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in Ohio, which is drawing venture capital.

The communities competing for the $1 million Talent Dividend Prize have a modest goal: boosting the number of college degrees in their city by one percentage point. If every participating city meets that goal, it could raise national earnings by a stunning $124 billion.