A longtime booster of Cincinnati's tech scene, and the original parent company of the Brandery startup accelerator, has its next leader.
Kelly Bonnell recently took over as executive director of Main Street Ventures, according to a release. She most recently served as chief operations officer for her family's business, BGR Inc., a packaging supply distributor and one of Greater Cincinnati's largest private companies.
Bonnell replaces Pete Brown, who departed for Western & Southern in early March.
"This role combines my passion for supporting small businesses along with my love for the city of Cincinnati, my home," Bonnell said in a statement. "Main Street Ventures has supported the startup ecosystem here for decades, and I will continue the work of supporting the entrepreneurs that truly are the backbone of our community. We need to continue to encourage and motivate those with great ideas to come here and stay here, and our grant programs are integral to doing so."
Main Street Ventures has been a fixture in Over-the-Rhine since 1999, back when it was known as the "Digital Rhine" during the dot-com days of the early 2000s. But in the early 2010s when digital startups took center stage in the tech scene, Main Street Ventures created the Brandery accelerator to help those startups leverage Cincinnati's branding and marketing talent to create consumer-facing brands.
The running of the Brandery was taken over by the Gener8tor network out of Milwaukee in 2018 and Main Street Ventures reinvented itself again as a source of funding for early stage startups events that supported the ecosystem and groups that boosted the tech economy.
The organization's "Leap Grants" are designed for startups and small businesses grow enough to attract seed-stage investors and institutional capital. Since 2018, the organization has awarded nearly $900,000 in grant funding to 38 companies, including providing $260,000 in Covid-19 relief funding to The OTR Chamber’s “OTR Back on the Rise” Campaign and the NKY Restaurant Relief Fund, the release states.
Applications for the next round of Leap Grants and Ecosystem Building Grants opens on October 1, 2020. Those interested can apply online.
