Main Street Ventures, a mainstay of Cincinnati's tech scene, is launching a new grant program to boost the region's early-stage startups and entrepreneurs.
On Jan. 1, Main Street began collecting applications for its new Launch Grants to provide funding for for-profit businesses at either the prototype or product stage, according to its website. Grants range from $5 to $10,000.
The grants, the website states, are provided only for projects that can be tracked by a specific metric.
Applications are available online here and must be submitted by Feb. 26. Recipients will be announced in March.
Preference will be given to companies that: are tech-enabled, women- or minority-owned, or can show matching funds from other sources.
For more information, click here.
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.
