Jenni Baker and three of her friends were talking one day and realized they all had some degree of background in event planning. The realization sparked an idea. “We decided to come together and form this company,” says Baker.
 
So, in January 2012, Baker, Holly Lauch, Timi Kormos and Jane Diemer started Cardigan Events. Baker and Lauch work on the development and business side of the company, while Diemer and Kormos apply their talents on the creative and... Read more >

In 2012, Northeast Ohio was a popular place for venture capitalists and angel investors to back startup companies. Investments nationally decreased by 10 percent last year, and decreased in the rest of Ohio by 33 percent, according to a study in The MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
 
But in Northeast Ohio, according to the Northeast Ohio Venture Capital Advisory Task Force, 105 tech-based companies in Greater Cle... Read more >

Phil Alexander and Mohit Ahluwalia realized something when they were earning their MBAs at CWRU: that people in all segments of businesses are charged with creating presentations at some point in their careers. However, not everyone has the talent -- or budget to hire an agency -- to create an eye-catching presentation.

“Thirty million PowerPoint presentations are made every day across America,” says Alexander.
 
So Alexander and Ahluwalia thought... Read more >

What began as a game and website development company in 1996 has blossomed into a thriving developer of software products.

After creating internal software that allowed UrbanCode to track the progress of its own software development projects, the company began developing similar products for its customers. UrbanCode products help their customers get their software to production faster -- decreasing time to market and ultimately getting their technology to the end users qu... Read more >

Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies (GLNT), which creates biomedical technologies, received Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approval to market its Kinesia technology in Australia. The technology is used to assess and find treatments for Parkinson’s disease.
 
“The Kinesia system is used for quantitative assessment of Parkinson’s motor systems, which include tremors, bradykinesia, or slow motor movements, and rigidity,” explains Joe Giuffrida, ... Read more >

Five student entrepreneurial teams will compete in the semifinals at the Ohio Clean Energy Challenge in Columbus on January 29, presenting their business plans and technologies to a panel of judges for the chance to win $10,000 and an opportunity to go on to the Midwest regional competition in Chicago.

The event is hosted by the University Clean Energy Alliance of Ohio (UCEAO) and NorTech as part of the Department of Energy’s National Clean Energy Business Plan Comp... Read more >

JumpStart recently invested $250,000 in Guided Interventions, a startup company that has developed technology to assess coronary artery blockages. The company was formed two years ago and has been mainly focused on developing its intellectual property and proof of concepts, says Guided Interventions CEO Matthew Pollman.

“The concept is revolutionary,” Pollman says. “It uses a pressurized guideline to measure fractional flow reserve (FFR). It facilitates ... Read more >

About 15 years ago Nick Stevovich was experiencing the familiar burn in his legs from bike racing. He thought to himself, there has to be a better way to pedal a bicycle.

“I thought how do I overcome leg fatigue and still get the same performance,” he says. “About the same time I was rollerblading.” With that the idea for Motion Resolution was born.

Stevovich is developing an improved bike pedal that uses some of the concepts of rollerblad... Read more >

Genna Petrolla is working in Cleveland’s economic development department, improving the city’s website and blog, as well as helping to increase exposure to the city’s loan and grant program. She is one of three people at city hall in a two-year fellowship through the Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) fellowship program.

Launched in September by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Cleveland State University and Virginia Polytechnic Instit... Read more >

When Dave Lazor founded Lazorpoint nearly 16 years ago, he had a vision of building a full-service IT firm that would allow clients to focus on what they do best and not worry about whether their information services capabilities were the right match.

“We think, build and run informational systems that instill confidence,” explains Lazor. “Entrepreneurs or mid-market CEOs are focused on running their businesses and servicing their customers. They kn... Read more >

Milo Biotechnology, a BioEnterprise startup created to find therapies for neuromuscular diseases, received FDA orphan drug designation for its AAV1-FS344, a drug that increases muscle strength.
 
The drug is a myostatin inhibitor that produces the protein follistatin, which increases muscle strength. Milo is focused on using the drug for treatment of Becker and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In both types of the disease, patients have progressive muscle weakness and car... Read more >

Jonathan Yale has always been socially conscious. As an athlete, he is also concerned about what foods he puts into his body. Those two principles came together when Yale and Phillip Williams founded HooftyMatch last August, an online marketplace for buying and selling locally produced meats.

“It started from a nutritional aspect,” says Yale. “I actually went to farms and bought some whole animals. I started educating myself on all the different factors ... Read more >

When Deej Lincoln bought Interior Products Company two years ago, he thought he would build upon the commercial millwork company’s reputation for creating beautiful libraries. While the company continues to do library work, a new business built on sustainability, recycling and a bit of nostalgia has evolved.

Reclaimed Cleveland harvests wood from Cleveland properties slated for demolition and turns what they find into functional works of art. “We wanted to bui... Read more >

This week BioEnterprise and Global Cleveland are hosting their fourth online biomedical job fair, hoping to attract top talent to the industry. “This is really driven by the growth in the biomedical sector in Northeast Ohio,” explains Aram Nerpouni, BioEnterprise interim CEO. “We’ve gone from 300 to 700 biomedical companies in the area. Cleveland is becoming a national hotbed for biomedical.”

The job fairs are an effective resource for employ... Read more >

When a patient needs a breathing tube or feeding tube, proper placement is critical. Miach Medical Innovations, a company formed in 2011 out of CWRU, is developing tubes with built-in sensors to ensure proper placement.

“Several statistics show the need for properly placing these tubes,” says operations manager Cullen Dolan, who is working on his masters in engineering management. “Ten percent of breathing tubes are not initially placed properly. We... Read more >

Donna Lee, CEO of MascotSecret, has always eyed with envy the vacant good seats at sporting events. She thought there had to be some way to get those unused good seats into the hands of those sitting in the cheap seats. So Lee and co-founder Jennifer Jeng set out to find a way.

“This is the problem we had growing up -- we always wanted better seats,” says Lee. “You go to the game, you see all the empty seats, and we thought there has to be a better solut... Read more >

There’s a new cab company in town, and owner Ray Ibrahim boasts that his cabs are decked out with the latest technology. Ibrahim, who has logged 30 years in the taxi business in Chicago, moved to Cleveland this past October to expand his Wolley Taxi Company.
 
“The city is growing and so we came here to help out,” says Ibrahim, who sees demand for speedy cab service in Cleveland. “On Fridays and Saturdays, people wait over an hour to get a cab.... Read more >

Last May, Brandt Butze had what he calls an “Aha! moment.” He was 370 pounds and wanted to lose the weight and get in shape. He went on Facebook and posted that he was committed to walking.
 
“I had 225 comments on my Facebook page and all sorts of support,” he recalls. That first morning, his sister and a group of people met Butze and they went for a 30-minute walk. “We jogged the last block,” he says. “I was in tears there w... Read more >