NE Ohio business incubators cite their successes

BYLINE: Mary Vanac, Plain Dealer Reporter

For the first time, the consortium of five Edison incubators in Northeast Ohio, known as NEOinc, have pooled the performance numbers of their tenant companies.

And the numbers look pretty impressive.

In the three fiscal years ended in June, tenants of the five incubators created 463 jobs, generated $145.8 million in revenue, attracted $59.6 million in investment capital and sustained employee payrolls of $58 million.

The Akron Global Business Accelerator, Braintree in Mansfield, Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE) in Lorain, Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network (MAGNET) in Cleveland and the Youngstown Business Incubator formed their consortium late last year, said Wayne Zeman, chairman of NEOinc.

The incubators got together because they are collectively responsible for spending Entrepreneurial Signature Program money from the state's Third Frontier program, said Zeman, who also is vice president of venture development for MAGNET.

"We want to make sure that we employ those resources most effectively," Zeman said. "The way to do that is to collaborate a lot more closely than we have in the past."

The incubators plan on doing joint programming for tenants, "build links between tenant companies so they can network and do deals together, and share information on those tenants," he said.

"This group of relatively small entities is having a significant impact on the Northeast Ohio technology economy," Zeman said.