Ohio is no longer flyover country when it comes to attracting venture capital for biotech companies. In 2014, Cleveland had $398 million in investments among 40 companies, ranking second in major Midwest cities behind Minneapolis. Yet access to local capital remains a concern.

Growing up, Erin Slater was a sticker fanatic “I have fond memories of trading stickers with my neighbor and friend,” she recalls. Little did she know, that childhood passion would turn into a business model as an adult.
 
Earlier this month Slater launched Fayvel, a line of colorful children’s shoes made with a blank canvas. The kids can then attach Frieze Tags –embroidered patches with industrial Velcro backings in a variety of themes. T... Read more >

Marrion Demore has always loved improving on commercial bottled barbeque sauce. “I used to have really big family cookouts and I’d just doctor up some Open Pit to make it taste better,” Demore recalls. “People always said, ‘you should market this.’ I never gave it much thought until the economy went down hill. Then I knew I had to make it from scratch.”
 
Today, Demore calls himself the Rock and Roll Star of Sauce. In 200... Read more >

As the first director of the newly-created Cuyahoga County Department of Sustainability, Mike Foley has visions of Cuyahoga County being a leader in green practices.

“I absolutely believe Cuyahoga can be the greenest county in the state,” Foley says. “We are lucky to have a lot of smart people, good public officials and a solid base of residents and businesses who understand that reducing our carbon footprint is the only sane alternative in the face... Read more >

A research team studying touch and movement in prosthetic limbs at the Cleveland Clinic was just awarded a $2.5 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a suite of outcome metrics for advanced prosthetic limbs. 
 
Through DARPA’s new Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program, Dr. Paul Marasco and his team of researchers at the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute d... Read more >

The Health-Tech Corridor was once a forgotten stretch of Euclid Avenue. Today the three-mile stretch between downtown and University Circle has become a hub of growing biotech and startup companies, with another round of development on the way.

Eugene Malinskiy, founder of healthIT integrated solutions provider DragonID, didn’t even know a friend had nominated him for the 2015 Forbes.com 30 Under 30 in the manufacturing and industry category. And even though he was featured as one of the 30, Malinskiy just wants to focus on the work at hand.

“It’s nice to get recognized and nice to get the award, but we want to be left alone to do our work,” Malinskiy, 29, says. By work, he mean... Read more >

Downtown Cleveland Alliance is looking for new members of its City Advocates Program, which is now entering its seventh year. Advocates work on civic-oriented projects and gain an insider’s perspective into downtown Cleveland as well as a chance to experience first-hand the forward momentum of Cleveland’s development.

“The City Advocates Program is considered to be a civic engagement program,” says Laura Wiegand, DCA director of development and com... Read more >