Griffin Morris, Resquared co-founder Twice a year, Silicon Valley based Y Combinator (YC) funds category-defining ventures and provides them with mentorship. YC's alumni are valued at a combined $300B+ and include Dropbox, AirBnB, Stripe, Brex, and Podium to name a few. Last month, YC invested in Cincy-based Resquared, a marketing platform for commercial [...]

At-home COVID-19 test Kroger Health, in collaboration with healthcare tech company Gauss, is launching the first smartphone-enabled at-home COVID rapid antigen test kit available nationwide.  Cybersecurity scholarship The University of Cincinnati is establishing a CyberCorps Scholarship for Service program with a $4 million award from the National Science Foundation. It is a full scholarship and living [...]

Cintrifuse hires managing director Cintrifuse has announced that Oleg Kaganovich is the new managing director of its fund. Kaganovich, a former venture capital investor in the US, Asia, and Saudi Arabia, will lead the launch of Cintrifuse's third fund and manage Funds I and II. Improving breast cancer outcomes Human cells clean out waste, allowing [...]

Nick Dokich, Ulimi founder Conversational design is all about chatbots and voicebots, both of which are computer programs driven by AI, automated rules, natural-language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML). Ulimi, located in Covington, is a tech company that creates chatbots and voicebots to optimize business/workforce performance. Cincinnati Future spoke with Ulimi’s founder [...]

Paul Powers, Physna Inc. CEO and Founder Physna is a geometric deep-learning and 3D search solutions company in Cincy that recently raised a Series B investment of $20 million from Sequoia—its first investment in Ohio. We spoke to Paul Powers, Physna's CEO and co-founder, about the company and its future plans. Tell us [...]

MORTAR growing its space Mortar, an accelerator and nonprofit that aims to help underserved entrepreneurs and small businesses succeed, has outgrown its space and is opening a fifth location, as well as a new headquarters. "Lab on a Chip" A professor at the University of Cincinnati has created a “lab-on-a-chip” device for early and noninvasive [...]

Physna raises $20 million Cincinnati 3D modeling pioneer Physna has just closed on $20 million in Series B funding, led by Sequoia Capital and Midwest-centric VC firm Drive Capital. Therapeutics at the push of a button Enable Injections is developing a medical device called the enFuse, an innovative drug delivery system. The device will allow patients to [...]

Rick Neff, Rick Neff LLC There's a big focus on Ohio for manufacturing. In fact, in 2012, Youngstown, OH, was chosen to be the flagship institute (America Makes) for Manufacturing USA, a national accelerator for technology research and innovation in additive manufacturing and 3D. As Rick Neff, of Rick Neff, LLC, says, “In [...]

Photo by Greg Widmeyer for Shutterstock. AI for manufacturers Ulimi is a Covington-based startup that is using artificial intelligence to make work life easier for manufacturers and other employers. Its product, Reach, enables companies to communicate via text with a large number of workers who may not have company email addresses. Getting roads [...]

While Procter & Gamble generated most of its growth from innovating from within, in 2000 CEO A.G. Lafley didn’t think the company could continue on that trajectory. It was spending greater amounts on R&D for smaller payoffs. Lafley’s idea was to do away with the “invent it yourself” approach and replace it with a “connect [...]

P&G's LifeLab Everyday Procter & Gamble launched its P&G LifeLab Everyday virtual experience at the all-virtual CES. The platform blends digital exploration with virtual reality to showcase the innovations and technologies shaped by customer research. Directions Research launches new suite of products Directions Research, a Cincy company that offers research and analyses for businesses, has [...]

Image courtesy Spatial.ai There are billions of people talking about their mindsets, interests and attitudes on social media and there was no company that was capturing that data on a geographical level. That is, until three years ago when Spatial.ai released its geosocial dataset. Cincinnati Future spoke with Lyden Foust, Spatial.ai’s CEO, about [...]

Water purifier tech Cincy’s GoSun has been named a CES 2021 Innovation Awards Honoree by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), for its GoSun Flow water purifier. The tech pumps over 100 gallons of water on a single charge, then it is recharged or powered with the sun. New grant program for startups Cincinnati’s tech scene [...]

Reneé Seward, Founder, See Word Design Reneé Seward graduated from the Graphic Design program at the University of Cincinnati in 2002. Today she is an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of the Communication Design program at UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. She has used her design and research skill to [...]

Larry Kavanagh, Navistone CEO NaviStone is a marketing company located in Over-the-Rhine that combines classic direct mail with digital retargeting. NaviStone’s CEO and Founder, Larry Kavanagh talked to Cincinnati Future about his company and the tech behind it. Tell us about how NaviStone was launched. I worked in the digital marketing space in [...]

New tech for remote connectivity In the continuing effort to evolve from just a telecom company, CBTS has recently launched a portfolio of networking products equipped with Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) technology. The move will help streamline connectivity in a time that remote work has become the norm. Belcan makes acquisition Belcan, one of [...]

P&G finalists to head to CES P&G Ventures has announced the four finalists for the third annual P&G Ventures CES Innovation Challenge. The Challenge will culminate with representatives from the selected startups pitching their products virtually to a panel of expert judges on the P&G LifeLab stage during CES in 2021. Miami U launches successful [...]

Peel9: CEO Todd Levy, CTO Murat Ozer, CMO Tim Sabransky, and Director of Business Development Daniel Gerard Peel9, a Cincinnati Business Courier 2020 Innovation-Technology award winner, is an 1819 Innovation Hub supported records management and analytics company that serves the law enforcement community. Cincinnati Future had the opportunity to speak with CEO and [...]

Image by aslysun for Shutterstock While the world is currently laser-focused on the COVID-19 vaccine, some Cincinnati researchers are working on another goal: developing a universal vaccine for seasonal influenza. The CDC estimates there were 38 million cases for the 2019-2020 flu season. Eighteen million sought care from their healthcare provider, 400,000 were hospitalized, [...]

Queen City Angels investments Queen City Angels has closed an investment with Joot, a two-year-old company that applies automation and technology to improve the SEC compliance process for small and medium-sized financial advisory firms. How do astronauts do their laundry? Add this one to things you never thought about. P&G has signed a contract with [...]