CHAMPIONING SEED-STAGE INVESTMENTS

We capitalize undeniably better ideas into world-class digital and health care companies by leveraging our Midwest Advantage.

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COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

Rachel Angel, Founder, Peerro
Rachel Angel is the founder of Peerro (sounds like hero), an app that allows teenagers to apply for entry-level jobs that can lead to full-time employment. While still in high school, Angel chose to live alone in her family's home when her parents divorced and moved away. She supported herself by working at an assisted living facility, eventually earning a doctorate in pharmacy at Hampton University in Hampton Roads, Virginia and becoming a pharmacist. The Cleveland native’s grit and determination translated into business success. Her experiences helped her see the need to provide an employment pathway for high school graduates who are not planning to go to college, which led her to create Peerro in 2019.

COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

Ry Walker, Founder, Astronomer

Astronomer is the driving force behind Apache Airflow, the de facto standard for expressing data flows as code. Airflow is downloaded more than 4 million times each month and is used by hundreds of thousands of teams around the world.

For data teams looking to increase the availability of trusted data, Astronomer provides Astro, the modern data orchestration platform, powered by Airflow. Astro enables data engineers, data scientists, and data analysts to build, run, and observe pipelines-as-code. Founded in 2018, Astronomer is a global remote-first company with hubs in Cincinnati, New York, San Francisco, and San Jose. Customers in more than 35 countries trust Astronomer as their partner for data orchestration.

COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

Jan Rosenbaum, Kurome Therapeutics

The team at Kurome Therapeutics is operating with a sense of urgency, said Jan Rosenbaum, Ph.D., the company’s chief executive officer. That’s because therapy initially being developed by Kurome seeks to treat patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare and deadly bone marrow cancer that primarily targets adults 50 and older. “This disease takes 50% of patients every year,” Rosenbaum said. Rosenbaum spent nearly 23 years as a scientist for Procter & Gamble before becoming Kurome’s CEO in April 2020. Kurome is a pre-clinical-stage company developing novel therapies that target cancer cells’ adaptive resistance mechanisms beginning blood cancers. Kurome secured the license to develop the therapies from Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center. CincyTech led Kurome’s seed-investment round.

COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

Peeyush Shrivastava, CEO, Genetesis

More than 8 million people go to the emergency room for chest pains every year. But 3 out 4 of the cases do not involve heart-related issues. Founded in 2017, Genetesis markets the CardioFlux® medical imaging device to hospital emergency rooms that shows heart activity in a non-invasive manner. The imaging process takes 90 seconds and has the potential to provide more effective diagnosis of life-threatening conditions. CincyTech and Mark Cuban of Radical Investments led Genetesis' $7.5 million Series A round of financing, and CincyTech led the seed round of funding.

CardioFlux®, has been granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the diagnosis of myocardial ischemia and infarction in patients with symptoms of acute chest pain.