When the Gay Games come to Northeast Ohio next August, 30,000 athletes and spectators are expected to descend upon Cleveland, visiting the city’s attractions, staying in area hotels, eating in restaurants and using other services.
 
Organizers are making sure small businesses know the impact the games could have on them, as well as how they can get their names out there. A local staff of 10 organizers has hosted two events targeted at small business sponsorship.... Read more >

If Jon Stahl of LeanDog fulfills his ambitious dream -- as he so often does -- Cleveland could see a string of elevated skylifts along the lake shore. With a planned 11-stop system, the tramway would move passengers between places like the Municipal Lot, Burke Lakefront Airport, the Convention Center, Wendy Park, Edgewater Park, and both banks of the Flats.

Arteriorcyte, a developer of stem cell products and medical devices, has launched Compass Biomedical to speed up the delivery to patients three Arteriocyte stem cells products. Created in December 2012, Compass officially got underway in June.
 
“The purpose of Compass is to help solve the issues in getting stem cells to patients,” says Kolby Day, Compass Biomedical vice president and general manager of research and development. “The challenges are h... Read more >

An annual study conducted by CSU’s Center for Economic Development at the Levin College of Urban Affairs shows that start-up companies in Northeast Ohio contribute significantly to the economy. The study surveyed tech-based companies that received assistance, either financially or in services, through JumpStart or the North Coast Angel Fund.
 
The 127 companies who participated in the study generated $211 million in economic benefits in Northeast Ohio in 2012, $... Read more >

Cleveland Clinic Innovations (CCI) announced last month that Wisconsin’s Marshfield Clinic Applied Sciences is the seventh clinic to join the Clinic’s Healthcare Innovation Alliance. The collaboration will help Marshfield develop and commercialize its innovations and improve healthcare.
 
The alliance, formed two years ago based on CCI’s 13 years of experience, is a way for the Clinic to share its knowledge while also improving upon its reputation wi... Read more >

When Gordon Daily founded BoxCast in 2008 after a funeral director asked his business partners to create a way for family members to privately observe funeral services at his chapel, he had no idea the concept of simple, live streaming video would be so popular.
 
Today, business is booming, especially in the church and on athletic fields. BoxCast allows anyone with a camera to stream live video to BoxCast’s cloud-based service. Users can then watch the video an... Read more >

After more than a two year wait and construction of its very own building, the Cleveland Clinic took delivery of and installed an A-7 Tesla full-body MRI on Friday. It is the only one of its kind in Northeast Ohio, and one of only about a dozen in the country.
 
While the 1.5 Tesla MRI is more common, and the Clinic even has several 3 Tesla MRIs, the 7 Tesla provides a better look, even down to the cellular level. “It has special resolution where we can actually... Read more >

OnShift, which produces staff scheduling software for the healthcare and senior living industries, recently made new additions to its software to comply with Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirements. The ACA, which goes into effect in 2014, puts penalties on companies that mismanage employee’s part-time and full-time hours. OnShift’s new predictive analytics helps employers keep better track of employees’ hours.
 
“Labor is the number-one operati... Read more >

Palo Alto-based Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) recently invested $66 million in Beachwood-based TOA Technologies, the largest ever venture-backed investment in an Ohio software company and the fourth largest of its kind in the nation last year.

TOA, which provides on-demand mobile workforce management solutions, began looking for investors about a year ago as part of its long-term growth plan. “We were looking at our ability to meet the opportunity ahead o... Read more >

Researchers have found that the Athersys stem cell product, MultiStem, has been effective in preventing rejection in organ transplant patients. The drug might someday eliminate the need for transplant recipients to take a life-long regime of immunosuppressant drugs that have potentially detrimental side effects.

Athersys has been developing MultiStem for the past six to eight years. The company developed the drug from human stem cells harvested from adult bone marrow. Pot... Read more >

WorkAdvance, a national program that provides low-income and low-skilled individuals with employment training, in conjunction with Towards Employment, a Cuyahoga County-based employment readiness agency, and seven other collaborators, has enrolled 465 local participants in its training program.

Enrollment began in June. The participants are receiving skills training and career services in manufacturing and healthcare. Rebecca Kusner, director of WorkAdvance, says two-thir... Read more >

The fourth annual Cleveland Give Camp will be held this weekend on the LeanDog boat by Burke Lakefront Airport. Organizers are expecting 200 volunteers to turn out from Friday, July 19 to Sunday, July 21 to help 18 chosen non-profits with their software and web-based application projects.
 
In addition to the developers, project managers, designers, creative professionals and other techies, volunteers do everything from making sure everyone is well fed to cleaning up.... Read more >

Researchers at CWRU School of Medicine and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute have discovered a way to restore bladder function in rats with severe spinal cord injuries. Jerry Silver, professor of neurosciences at CWRU School of Medicine, and Yu-Shang Lee, assistant staff scientist in the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, paired a traditional nerve bridge graft with scar degrading and growth factor treatments to grow new nerve cells. 

Th... Read more >

Lynde Vespoli has a background in the tourism industry. When she started hearing about projects like the Global Center for Health Innovation, the Cleveland Convention Center and the Horseshoe Casino, as well as plans to host the National Senior Games this summer and the Gay Games next, Vespoli decided to put her talents in destination management to work.
 
Last November Vespoli started Discover My Cleveland, a Destination Management Company. “Think of it as a on... Read more >

BlueBridge Networks isn’t trying to be the biggest cloud-based data storage and recovery company; the Cleveland-based company simply wants to be the best for its customers. To ensure that it is, BlueBridge recently announced a $6 million investment in technology to build the best network and facilities possible.

“We are controlling our own destiny,” explains managing director and partner Kevin Goodman. “We’re building our network to be cheape... Read more >

Knowta recently raised more than $300,000 in angel investments, exceeding its goal of $250,000 to roll out the next phase of its software solution. The LaunchHouse company offers free or discounted printing at libraries in exchange for accepting advertising on the bottom of the printed pages. A percentage of the revenue generated from the full-color ads is then returned to the libraries to offset their costs.
 
Initially, founder Ryan Clark and his four... Read more >

Both Bizdom and LaunchHouse received hundreds of entrepreneurs applying for their respective accelerator programs this year. LaunchHouse received a record 115 applications for 10 spots in its 2013 LHX accelerator program, while Bizdom already has seen more than 100 applications this year from all over the country.

Both organizations each received $200,000 from Ohio’s New Entrepreneurs (ONE) Fund earlier this year. So, Bizdom and LaunchHouse decided to collaborate in... Read more >

As an entrepreneurship/business management senior at Ohio University, and the president of the school’s Entrepreneurship Club, Richard Rodman has started two successful companies during his studies. Most recently, he noticed the need for some guidance in the crowdfunding trend.

So Rodman first started 530Funds in November 2012, a search engine and news site for the crowdfunding industry. “It was really hard to sift through Google to find the right platform,&rd... Read more >

Zuga Medical, a medical device company, recently received a $250,000 investment from JumpStart to launch its dental implant system. In April Zuga received FDA approval for its system, which allows a general dentist to perform implants using a screw, a procedure previously done only by oral surgeons.
 
“Our patent-pending technology makes it simpler, easier and more cost-effective for both the dentist and the patient,” says Zuga CEO Steve Cornelius, who met... Read more >