From Faith Voinovich's position as principal at Ohio Innovation Fund, she's seeing an increase in new blood via internships interested in entrepreneurship, eager to work with or start new ventures that can make an impact through meaningful work. Illustrating that change, she says applications for internships with the Fund have gone from a couple hundred to nearly 5,000 in a few years for just five spots. She talks about what she's seeing on the ground as an investor with an Ohio focus, as well a...
Nov 11, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast It may have been out of necessity, but Frank Venegas Jr. began the succession process at a very young age for daughter Linzie and son Jesse. Linzie said she was in a playpen in her father’s office, because they didn’t have the money for sitters and her parents worked long hours. It may have been a hardship then, but its paying dividends today as both Linzie and Jesse have taken over leadership of the company.
Nov 08, 2022•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast As supply chain issues continue to wreak havoc for businesses both large and small, Chain.io Founder and CEO Brian Glick hopes to alleviate the problems with its cloud-based integration platform, which lets all the different entities in the chain share data between all their systems. In this episode, he discusses how Chain.io is addressing the problem as well as the company's recent capital raises.
Nov 04, 2022•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Desire Company matches and retailers with the right experts to trial, test and review products, producing video reviews for use at the point of sale and across digital marketing channels. These partnerships are proving to drive an increase in conversions, time on site and an increase in marketing effectiveness. Co-founder and CEO Eric Sheinkop discusses the creation of The Desire Company, his experience raising capital for the startup and place for the future.
Nov 04, 2022•24 min•Ep 189•Transcript available on Metacast Kit Needham directs Project Olympus, Carnegie Mellon University's incubator that helps students, faculty and alums turn their ideas into viable businesses. She discusses the very earliest stages of entrepreneurism, what tends to trip folks up at this stage and how her experience as an investor informs her approach to coaching the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Nov 04, 2022•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ralph Della Ratta has had a remarkable career that spans four decades, hundreds of public and private M&A deals, and — despite two attempts at retirement — is still going. Ralph talks about his career, his recent retirement from Citizens Bank where he headed up its M&A division and chaired its investment banking committee, and his most recent move to join private equity firm Kirtland Capital Partners.
Oct 28, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Petra Capital Partners recently completed fundraising on its Peta Growth Fund IV, which gives it $208 million of capital to invest, primarily in the health care space. David Fitzgerald, a partner at Petra, discusses the fund, the fundraising process and investment competition in a still-hot deal market. He also shares a bit of his firm's investment philosophy as well as his outlook on how the remainder of the deal year could play out.
Oct 28, 2022•21 min•Ep 186•Transcript available on Metacast Royal Capital Group Founder and CEO Kevin Newell discovered that when living conditions improve, so do the mental and physical health of those living in the neighborhoods he’s developed. This approach opened a new capital stream through UnitedHealthcare, which is now the largest private investor, providing $5.4 million in equity funding for one of his latest endeavors.
Oct 27, 2022•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Samantha Ory's firm Ouroboros Group is growing. The independent sponsor is building its first fund as it looks to approach sellers with unique strategies catered to the company's goals. She talks about the evolution of her firm, the effects of increased buy-side competition, and how buyer and seller misalignment is affecting deals and what's being done to bridge that gap.
Oct 27, 2022•24 min•Ep 184•Transcript available on Metacast Former NetJets CEO Jordan Hansell has launched Tradepost, an investment platform that provides growth capital to mid-market firms. Hansell talks about how the firm approaches the M&A market, as well as how he's coupling his experience in the c-suite with his experience as an investor to help guide the CEOs who lead his portfolio companies.
Oct 12, 2022•29 min•Ep 183•Transcript available on Metacast Lu Alleruzzo, a bioengineer with a MBA, had an opportunity early in his career to understand innovation and immediately apply it to society for the benefit of all. That opportunity — and $88 million in venture capital — fueled him and his biotech company, Immunophotonics, to pioneer a field of cancer care called Interventional Immuno Oncology.
Oct 11, 2022•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Checkpoint Surgical, a privately held U.S.-based medical device company with proprietary neurostimulation technology for nerve protection and repair, raised $16 million of growth capital in August of 2021. One year later, with those investments in place, the company is shifting into growth mode, a move that comes with substantial changes. Executive Advisor Len Cosentino talks about the raise, his process for vetting investors and how Checkpoint is setting itself up for profitability....
Oct 06, 2022•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Forrest Tefft, head of corporate finance at Northwest Bank, has, more than four decades in banking. He has raised more than $14 billion in bank capital and was the originator of more than 70 transactions. Tefft discusses some of the hurdles businesses face in a near post-pandemic world and the things they should consider before making any M&A transactions.
Oct 06, 2022•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Melissa Sherman went from a MOBILion investor to its CEO. She has lead the still-young company that's focused on developing lab instruments that improve the prediction, diagnosis and treatment of disease through more than $100 million in fundraising to propel it to its next phase. She talks about her transition into the business, what she's learned being on the other side of the fundraising table, and how her experience leading two companies at different lifecycle stages to an exit has informed ...
Oct 06, 2022•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast What options do health care companies have when it comes to funding their business? And what are the pros and cons of each? Neil Johnson, managing partner at Lawrence Evans & Co., a lower-middle-market investment banking, corporate finance and advisory services firm, talks about the many funding options, when each makes sense for a company, and when they don't.
Oct 06, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast After raising $307 million in capital commitments for his LFM III fund, LFM Capital Partners Co-Founder and Executive Managing Director Steve Cook talks about how the firm will deploy that capital in lower-middle-market manufacturing. LFM was founded by operators, and their time in that role informs their investment approach, meaning they can invest in companies that fall outside the typical PE investment criteria. He talks about the fund, their approach, and how businesses in that sector today ...
Sep 29, 2022•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Angel St. Jean is the co-founder and CEO of the Baltimore tech startup The Black Brain Trust, which has championed a patent-pending methodology for measuring diversity, equity and inclusion in public and private companies and government agencies. Angel talks about her fundraising experience, the traction DEI has gained in recent years as well as how the specter of ESG reporting beyond the public sector is pressing the issue.
Sep 15, 2022•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Schill Grounds Management, a commercial landscaping company, is growing .... well ... like a weed. Back in late 2019 the company sold a controlling interest to Argonne Capital Group and has since gone on an acquisition spree, adding seven companies into the fold while growing its headcount considerably. Founder and CEO Jerry Schill stops by the pod to talk about the decision to bring on a PE partner, and how both he and the company are evolving through the M&A process.
Sep 09, 2022•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast The L’Herbier family was at a crossroads six years ago. The owners of Air Duct Maintenance, Kevin and Debbie L’Herbier, were looking to retire and had to decide what to do with the company they started in 1996. They approached their children, Dan and Lauren, to see if they had interest in taking over leadership. After a brief period, the siblings decided to begin the succession process. But it didn’t go as quickly as everyone had hoped.
Sep 09, 2022•18 min•Ep 174•Transcript available on Metacast Publicly traded cancer diagnostics company Oncocyte has used several avenues to fund its growth in recent years. President and CEO Ron Andrews discusses the company's latest capital raises and acquisitions. He talks about the company's use of its at-the-market program, how it works, when it's best deployed, and what the raise from it has enabled to the company to do.
Aug 30, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Wisconsin Startup Coalition aims to do as its name implies — build coalitions of people, organizations and companies that can establish a strong foundation on which to build a thriving startup scene in underserved rural areas. Co-founders Matt Cordio and Peter Welch talk about the progress the organization has made since its launch in 2020, and how creating a network of support could lead to putting Wisconsin on investors' maps.
Aug 26, 2022•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast James Barnes began his first microenterprise at the age of 14, and launched Immaculate Cleaning Co. in his early 20s. Today the company's founder and president has leveraged the advice of area business leaders to grow Immaculate Cleaning to some 60 employees who service marquee accounts throughout the city. He talks about his entrepreneurial journey and the importance of pushing through the noes to get to the all-important yeses.
Aug 26, 2022•14 min•Ep 171•Transcript available on Metacast Several years ago, Allison Howard had an “ah-ha” moment when she realized her cotton bedding was damaging her skin and hair — and ultimately disrupting her sleep. In response, she founded Nollapelli to merge beauty science, textile technology and sleep discovery, and prepared the company for early-stage investing.
Aug 05, 2022•21 min•Ep 170•Transcript available on Metacast Interest rates are on everyone's mind as the Fed promises and delivers on increases to combat inflation. Citymark Capital CEO Daniel Walsh talks about the real estate investment market, what — and where — is hot, and how he sees the investment landscape playing out given the economic currents.
Aug 05, 2022•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since 2014, Life Remodeled has invested more than $35 million into blighted Detroit neighborhoods to spur economic opportunities, job creation, community centers and business growth. Founder and CEO Chris Lambert talks about the non-profit's progress, its successes, fundraising and its future.
Aug 04, 2022•21 min•Ep 168•Transcript available on Metacast Having sold his super successful Dayton-based Orthodontics practice, Dan German has set out on a new venture. Orthobrain brings him up to Cleveland to help general practitioners through a digital venture get the training they need to introduce orthodontics in their businesses. German talks about how his former business is informing his current one, building with the end in mind, what he's learning about fundraising, building a board, and more.
Jul 29, 2022•30 min•Ep 167•Transcript available on Metacast United Cutwater CEO Chris Riley has more than 30 years’ experience owning and operating more than a dozen businesses in numerous industries. His personal experiences buying and selling companies, negotiating transactions, overseeing dozens of accountants, attorneys and other professionals allowed him to fine-tune a creative deal construction in the volatile industry of mergers and acquisitions. Chris sat down with Smart Business Dealmakers to discuss the current M&A landscape and how business ow...
Jul 29, 2022•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bill Fox launched GoIndustry.com around the time the dot-com bubble burst and managed to not only take the online machinery and equipment sales site public, but grow it to 47 offices in 27 countries and some 600 employees. Now, Bill is back with Rextar, an online real estate marketplace that does business as Homesale.plus. The company recently raised its first seed round and Bill expects a more substantial round could follow in 2022. He talks about his GoIndustry experience and how that's inform...
Jul 22, 2022•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nadyli Nuñez has guided hundreds of early-stage entrepreneurs through her incubator, co-working programs and numerous early-stage investments to position them for add-on capital as part of their growth journey from scale-up to the middle market. She has a detailed, hands-on approach to ensure the success of her clients.
Jul 15, 2022•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Andrew Barnell is the CEO of Geneoscopy, a life sciences company he co-founded with his sister to develop diagnostic tests for gastrointestinal health. The company recently raised $105 million and was ranked the 5th-largest biotech or agtech firm in St. Louis. Andrew talks about the formation of the business, operating a company with family, fundraising and how they'll use their latest round of capital.
Jul 14, 2022•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
