Citizens Bank is giving the Economic Community Development Institute (ECDI) a $1 million line of credit to help finance loans to new and expanding businesses. ECDI provides loans between $500 and $350,000 to business owners and entrepreneurs trying to start or grow their businesses who might otherwise not be able to secure a loan.
 
ECDI's Cleveland office will receive the majority of the money, says Eric Diamond, executive vice president of ECDI Cleveland. “We will have a little more than 50 percent in this area because our loan volume is pretty high,” he says. “We expect to see a 30 percent increase in loan volume this year over last year.”
 
ECDI and Citizens have regularly worked together on securing loans for ECDI clients and have formed a good relationship, Diamond says . ECDI works with the SBA in addition to a variety of banks when funding a loan.
 
“Without us getting funding, we couldn’t fund other people,” says Diamond, adding that their average loan is about $25,000.
 
ECDI, which also has offices  offices in Columbus, Toledo and Akron, is the fourth largest SBA micro-lender in the United States and a U.S. Treasury-designated Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). Since the organization was started in Columbus in 2004, ECDI has assisted over 5,000 entrepreneurs, loaned over $25 million to over 1,200 businesses, and created and retained over 4,500 jobs across the state.  
 
The Cleveland ECDI office alone has funded approximately $5.3 million to more than 130 businesses since it started in 2012. “Citizens really understands CDFIs and they’ve spent a lot of time with us,” says Diamond. “They really know business and they are a class act to work with.”

When the Incubator at MAGNET launched ProtoTech last year, the event was a pitch competition for product-based start-ups competing for $25,000 in prize money. This year, organizers have shifted focus a bit with ProtoTech: INVEST – a networking and pitch event that is all about investment in growing companies.
 
“Last year it was a pitch event for really early stage companies,” says Dave Crain, the Incubator at MAGNET executive director. “This year we’re more about connections and networking than it is of a contest. It’s for presenters who are looking for $500,000 to $2 million in investments.”
 
There will be pitches, but in a less formal setting without voting or prize money at ProtoTech: INVEST. Fifteen to 20 technology based start-ups with a focus on products will showcase their companies to investors at the event. “It’s an opportunity to get the right people in the room to make connections, network and find funding,” says Crain, adding that ProtoTech: INVEST is the next step in pitch competitions.
 
“It’s just a part of the evolution, part of maturity,” Crain says. “There will always be pitch competitions, there always should be pitch competitions. We’re just building a pipeline. This is the next level of maturity as these companies grow up.”
 
Crain says the shift came in response to feedback from both sides involved in start-up fundraising. “What I’m really hearing from both the start-ups and investors is while Ohio has made a lot of progress, no one is doing this locally – this is something successful ventures cities are doing.”
 
Some of the companies already registered are Cleveland Whiskey, Vadxx, Biolectrics and Everykey.
 
ProtoTech: INVEST will be held at the Metropolitan at the 9 on Thursday, June 4. Registration and pitches will be from 2pm to 5pm; dinner and networking at 5pm. Presenters can register here; investors can register here.

While it is not easy to move to a new country and a new city full of different cultures, languages and traditions, refugees not only make it work, they become some of Cleveland’s most successful entrepreneurs.

Using the local food scene as a launch pad, craft food startups are growing quickly. We caught up with a fresh batch to learn the recipes behind their success.

Jeanne Petrus-Rivera became a vegan seven years ago, partly for health reasons. She quickly learned that one of the things vegans miss most is dairy. So she set out to create a tasty, healthy alternative. With that, Petrus-Rivera started Red Lotus Foods, making a variety of cashew-based products that are tasty, healthy and wildly popular at local farmers markets in Northeast Ohio.

“As a vegan, I found a lot of people who are interested in going vegan, but found it hard to give up dairy products,” says Petrus-Rivera. “Most non-dairy products are disappointing.” Cashews, on the other hand, are lower in fat but loaded with monounsaturated fat, antioxidants and other good things. Petrus-Rivera discovered that they also make a great substitute for dairy.
 
Red Lotus produces vegan flavored cashew spreads, cashew sour cream and a sweet cashew creme. “They’re really so flavorful and delicious,” she says. “I think this is the way to go to make vegan more accessible.” Flavors range from sun dried tomato and black garlic to the new spirulina bleu.
 
Petrus-Rivera participated in both the Bad Girl Ventures and Cleveland Culinary Launch and Kitchen business programs earlier this year. She operates out of the CCLK with one employee, her husband, and sells her products at farmers markets. More recently, she’s been dropping samples by local restaurants in hopes of forming partnerships.
 
Petrus-Rivera’s dream is to form a cooperative out of Red Lotus. “We’re really just at the beginning of something that’s part of a whole paradigm shift,” she explains. “I have a huge vision and I hope to achieve it in the next three or four years.”

Three organizations -- LaunchHouse, Civic Commons Ideastream and Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI) -- have come together as the lead partners in supporting entrepreneurs with ideas to improve their communities.

SEA Change, a Social Enterprise Accelerator, provides up to $50,000 in funding, coaching and connections to eligible candidates trying to make a difference in Cleveland neighborhoods. “We’re funding people who have ideas to improve their communities in a sustainable way,” says Mike Shafarenko, Civic Commons director. “A number of organizations came together last November to discuss how to revive development and support of social enterprises in Northeast Ohio.”
 
Seven other groups are also involved, including JumpStart, Foundation Center Cleveland and Business Volunteers Unlimited (BVU). SEA Change is funded by the Business of Good Foundation, the Generation Foundation, the Burton D. Morgan Foundation and the George Gund Foundation.
 
Shafarenko says SEA Change emerged as the involved organizations saw a need to support the growing number of social enterprises in Cleveland. “We have a tremendous amount of talented, active people in Northeast Ohio who just don’t have the means to execute their ideas,” he explains. “The entrepreneurial spirit needs a little bit of coaching and support to take it to the next level.”
 
Examples of existing successful social enterprises include Edwins Restaurant at Shaker Square, which employs former inmates, Tunnel Vision Hoops, which manufactures and sells hoop houses to extend the growing season, and From the Blue Bag, which converts recyclables into works of art.
 
Sea Change will host training sessions on Friday, June 13 and Friday, July 11 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The events will provide training, one-on-one consultation and networking to help participants get social enterprise ideas off the ground.

 

The final inspections for Cleveland Culinary Launch and Kitchen take place this week, and a customer is planning to come in the next day. The organizers behind Cleveland's first-ever shared commercial kitchen hope that's a sign of good things to come.

The kitchen's goal is to help local food entrepreneurs bring products to market. With so many food truck owners, caterers, urban gardeners and budding chefs making their products in cramped home quarters or church kitchens that aren't always available, the group behind the venture hopes to fill a growing need.

"We're a food launchhouse," says Carolyn Priemer, whose family-owned real estate company is a partner in the project, along with Tim Skaryd of Hospitality Marketing and Sales and the Economic and Community Development Institute (ECDI). "Ours is the only facility in Cleveland that you can pay as you use."

The facility allows entrepreneurs to lease time for $18-24 per hour. The kitchen, which was built by Cleveland State University before it moved to the new student center, has stations for baking, catering, canning, thermal processing and dry packing. The venue also has dry storage and walk-in coolers and freezers.

ECDI is available to offer loans to food entrepreneurs, and the partners plan to offer classes as well. Hospitality Sales and Marketing is a food brokerage, and Skaryd says he will help customers with small-scale canning and labeling.

So far, prospective customers that have expressed interest include food truck operators, an ice cream maker, tea maker and granola bar maker, among others. Priemer says that she's gotten inquiries with only word-of-mouth marketing.

The facility is available for use 24/7, and has its own security system and key card access. Users do not have to sign a lease, but must sign a basic user agreement.

Will it be profitable? Priemer says that will depend on the amount of usage, and right now it could go either way. However, she hopes entrepreneurs will see the value not only in the space, but in networking opportunities with other startups.

"There is no food hub for businesses," she says. "This seems to connect a lot of areas of the food industry here. We're planning to hold networking events to bolster the local food community, including bringing in some guest chefs."

Cleveland Culinary Launch and Kitchen is located at 2800 Euclid Avenue.


Source: Carolyn Priemer
Writer: Lee Chilcote