Three Cincinnati organizations, including the region's largest hospital system, have received new backing from Ohio Third Frontier.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Lightship Capital and Queen City Angels received a combined $13.5 million from the state's innovation funding arm, officials announced Wednesday. Here's how the local dollars were broken down:
- Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center: $5 million toward the $10 million Tomorrow Fund to invest in early-stage biomedical and life science opportunities based on Children's research that has high commercial potential
- Lightship Capital: $5 million toward the $10 million fund in a partnership with Hillman Accelerator to invest in entrepreneurs underserved by traditional venture capital and banking industries
- Queen City Angels: $3.5 million toward a $7 million fund to focus on investing in information technology and medical technology startups.
For Queen City Angels, $3.5 million in state matching funds will bring its current First Fund VI to approximately $15 million, making it the largest fund in the group’s history, the organization said in a release Thursday.
QCA has invested over $75 million in nearly 100 companies since its inception in 2000, said Tony Shipley, QCA founder. Its investments have been leveraged with over $560 million of additional capital invested in its portfolio companies. The Ohio Third Frontier funds will allow the group to further expand its efforts.
"This will allow us to help more Ohio entrepreneurs and early-stage ventures to accelerate their development, grow their operations, launch new products, expand their reach and/or take the next steps toward success," he said . "The size of First Fund VI is a major milestone for our group."
Third Frontier, meanwhile, is seeing its life extended. There's about $101 million out of the original $1.2 billion bond fund intended to foster job-creating technology and biotech companies, the Ohio Development Services Agency reported Wednesday.
The program has awarded a cumulative $1.08 billion and has received back $56.9 million from investment returns, repaid loans and unused portions of grants.
Commissioners awarded a total $70.5 million toward regional investment funds Wednesday, most of it to the Cleveland region. The regional seed funds have pledged raising $95.5 million in matching capital, and each projects startups they support will create hundreds of jobs.
An additional $2.1 million is heading to research institutions and individual startups toward proving out very early technology, including $350,000 to the Bon Secours Mercy Health Foundation, which is located in Toledo, for its Technology Validation Fund.
Both the amounts awarded and left over are greater than the state projected in December, when the Cleveland Business Journal reported the fund could dwindle to $58 million this quarter.
The rest of the awards from the Pre-Seed/Seed Plus Fund Capitalization Program, broken down by region:
Columbus
- Rev1 Ventures: $5 million toward $10 million Future Value Fund I, with co-investment from Ohio State University
Cleveland
- JumpStart Inc.: $10 million toward the $30 million Next II fund; $5 million toward a $10 million Evergreen Fund III; and $4 million toward an $8 million Healthcare Collaboration Fund, which is a partnership with University Hospitals
- Cleveland Clinic: $10 million toward a $30 million Ohio BioValidation Fund
- North Coast Ventures: A combined $9.5 million toward two funds, focused on different stages of companies, totaling $24 million
- Northeast Ohio Innovation Fund: $5 million toward an Elyria-based $10 million fund, with partners including JumpStart, North Coast and Lorain Community College
- Case Western Reserve University: $2 million toward a $4 million fund
- Comeback Capital: $1.5 million toward a $3 million fund
Dayton
- Ohio Gateway Tech Fund: $5 million toward the $10 million fund that has its administrative office in Hilliard but focuses on Dayton-area startups. Collaborators include Entrepreneurs Center, Converge Technologies, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, OSU and and the Dayton Area Chamber
The round of awards attracted eight applicants new to the program.
Meg Garner contributed to this report.
