JumpStart-backed entrepreneurs drove $1.9 billion in Ohio economic activity

Entrepreneurs supported by JumpStart Inc. and its partner network generated an estimated $1.9 billion in economic activity across Ohio in 2025, an 11 percent increase over 2024, according to the Cleveland nonprofit's 2025 Economic and Fiscal Impact Report, released [date]. Since 2010, assisted companies have generated an estimated $16.9 billion in cumulative activity for the state.

Lorne Novick, who became JumpStart's permanent CEO after leading the organization on an interim basis, described the report as evidence of what steady, long-term support produces. "That mission has not changed. If anything, we are being more intentional about where we can make the greatest difference," he said. He pointed to bringing more corporate, civic and philanthropic partners into the work as the way to extend that impact.

Tech startups accounted for most of the total, generating an estimated $1.8 billion in economic activity in 2025, up 9 percent over 2024, and supporting 9,236 jobs statewide. That work runs through Ohio's Entrepreneurial Services Provider (ESP) network, which JumpStart managed in 2025 alongside 16 regional partners across the northern part of the state. In all, 999 companies and early-stage technologies worked with at least one ESP partner during the year, according to Haley Burk, director of network management, a broader group than the survey-returning companies used to model the report's dollar figures. Eleven have been confirmed out of business to date.

The report's fastest growth came from small businesses receiving services directly from JumpStart, whose collective economic output rose 60 percent in a single year to $131 million. Jobs supported by those businesses climbed 42 percent to 1,564, aided by two programs that graduated their first cohorts in 2025: CapitalReady, focused on growth strategy and exit readiness, and ScaleReady, for founders building beyond themselves.

Patty Ajdukiewicz, vice president of small business capital and services, attributed the jump to a deliberate shift toward later-stage clients ready to scale. Community partners still handle much of the earliest-stage work, she explained, while JumpStart concentrates on helping companies navigate their next steps. One of those clients, Cleveland-based avocado oil maker Terranean, worked with CapitalReady on a packaging refresh that founder Tina Lattouf Chamoun credited with helping win a Kroger Nourishing Change Emerging Brand award and a Good Housekeeping Best Snack Award.

Kaleigh Gallagher, vice president of tech services and network management, cautioned against reading too much into the difference between the two growth rates. "It's apples and oranges," she said. Small business growth is a sprint that shows revenue fast and posts big percentage gains off a smaller base, she noted, while tech is a marathon that pays off once a company scales.

Gallagher added that the report understates the tech side. When a startup is acquired, it stops reporting metrics, she explained, so a successful exit disappears from the data. "The real story of Midwest tech isn't fully visible in any report, ours included," she said.

Much of JumpStart's tech effort now flows through its Trailblazer Accelerator, a no-cost, no-equity program launched in 2024. Gallagher framed the model as an investment thesis rather than charity, built to give Midwest founders room to prove product validation and build customer traction before giving up ownership too soon. Corporate partners back it for a stronger acquisition and customer pipeline, she noted, public partners cover the earliest and riskiest stage, and a growing share now comes from JumpStart's own alumni. The aim, she said, is "capital and expertise that flow in a circle instead of a line."

For founders like Andrew Cothrel, CEO of Cincinnati-based Kilele Health Inc., the accelerator arrived at the right time. Cothrel, a Trailblazer participant, credited the program with connecting his team to a vetted network of partners and suppliers. The company recently set a world record for aptamer biosensor life in a human, he added.

Gallagher expects healthcare, advanced manufacturing and logistics to lead Ohio's next stretch of growth, in that order. Artificial intelligence (AI) is giving Midwest founders the tools to compete in categories where the expertise, customers and capital already sit in the state, she added.

Novick tied it back to keeping companies growing in Ohio. The work, he said, is about "serving the entrepreneurs most ready to grow, bringing the right partners to the table and making sure companies have the resources to build and stay in Ohio."