At OIF, we have been working day in and day out to support the continued growth of our companies during this time of volatility. This newsletter is a high-level overview of the progress OIF and its companies have made over the past few months.
OIF Momentum Series
At Ohio Innovation Fund, we recognize that a little bit of hope goes a long way during these times — so we launched our Momentum Series, highlighting the high-impact work Ohio’s top companies are doing to support Life at Home (Aware, eFuse, DatAnchor), Healthcare (Genetesis, Complion) , and Innovative Rx Solutions (Clarametyx & Invirsa).
OIF Momentum Series x Aware with Founder & CEO Jeff Schumann →
Portfolio Companies Experience Unprecedented Growth Due to the Shift of How We Live & Work
ScriptDrop
ScriptDrop, a prescription delivery service, has accelerated rollout and accomplished 1.5 years of projected expansion in 2 months. This rollout has taken them up to 4X growth in daily prescription deliveries. Their partners now include Rite Aid, Publix, Albertsons, Kroger, and Giant Eagle.
eFuse
eFuse, the leading esports and gaming platform, has become more popular than ever and core users are using the platform more frequently, while new users are growing at an average rate greater than LinkedIn’s first year growth rate. Recently, eFuse partnered with ESPN for their eRena Warzone tournament event.
Aware
Aware provides AI-driven, human-centric risk management and behavior monitoring for cloud collaboration platforms for the remote workplace, a critical service as 90% of the working population shifts online. Within 45 days of the first “Stay at Home” orders, demand for Aware’s product skyrocketed as inbound inquiries during this period surpassed all of 2019’s, while existing customer usage has tripled.
DatAnchor
DAtAnchor enables security to travel with data and solves the fundamental problem of unprotected, sensitive data flowing freely over distributed networks. As a result, DAtAnchor has seen a massive amount of growth in the first year of its operations as a company. In the last two months, DAtAnchor has doubled its user base and increased the active pipeline by 20x.
Acquisition Announcement
In the most unlikely of times, OIF has seen its first portfolio exit with ConnXus — a comprehensive platform streamlining the process of connecting diverse suppliers with buyers — acquired by Coupa, a spend management platform, with a $15B+ market cap and 50+ percent historical growth rate. We are happy for both the positive financial return and that the majority of the ConnXus team has joined Coupa’s expanding Ohio office!
ConnnXus CEO Rod Robinson has joined Coupa’s Executive Leadership as the VP of Business Acceleration.
Creating an Entrepreneurial Hub for BioPharma & Life Sciences in Ohio
At Ohio Innovation Fund, we are committed to leveraging innovation occurring at some of the nation’s best research institutions in our home state —
including creating a hub of excellence in the biopharma & life sciences space.
Clarametyx Biosciences has partnered with Nationwide Children’s Hospital, licensing IP to find treatment for bacterial infections, specifically those with biofilms. Biofilms are difficult to treat and are one of the key structures that create antibiotic resistance. The team is first targeting Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia, which causes 22% of all hospital-acquired infections and is a leading cause of death.
Mike Triplett, CEO of Clarametyx, is the former CEO of Myonexus (acquired by Sarepta in 2019) and was previously the Director of Strategic Marketing in the Health & Life Sciences Global Business unit for Battelle Research Institution. Dr. Lauren Bakaletz, Director of the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis at The Research Institute at NCH and Distinguished Professor at OSU College of Medicine, is the Scientific Co-Founder for the research of Clarametyx.
Invirsa is a groundbreaking biopharma company, who’s lead compound (INV-102) targets viruses that damage DNA. Adenovirus, for example, infects the tissue linings of the eyes and other ares of the body, most commonly causing respiratory illness. Since the pandemic, the Invirsa team has looked to potentially leverage their lead compound as a treatment for COVID-19, though they are still early in the pre-FDA process.
Invirsa CEO and Founder Robert (“Bob”) Shalwitz, M.D. has had extensive experience in FDA drug approval. Previous to Invirsa, Bob was the Chief Medical Officer, Executive Vice President, and Co-Founder at Akebia Therapeutics, which had a successful IPO in 2014. Over the course of his career, he has raised over $200M in funds for novel therapeutic companies.
Our High Impact
Student Experience Program (SEP) Continues
During the month of May, we had 25 students attend our first ever virtual Venture Bootcamp. Bootcamps allow students to work on live deals and have the opportunity to connect with those who are driving innovation at all levels within our companies, from the founders & CEOs to recent hires just out of school!
OIF’s Summer Internship Program kicked off on June 1st with 7 interns representing Ohio University, Ohio State University, Kent State University, Kenyon College, and Miami of Ohio. Interest in SEP continues to expand, as OIF’s student-focused VC programming leads the nation, with hundreds of students having meaningful touch-points with OIF each year.
Our 2020 internship will be a hybrid virtual & in-person experience, with students connecting directly with companies through portfolio projects, as well as learning the nuts and bolts of VC over their 10-week experience.
General Portfolio Company Updates
Stirling UltraCold Recruits World-Class CEO Dusty Tenney
Dusty Tenney, former President of Life Sciences at Brooks Automation, recently joined Stirling UltraCold as CEO. Dusty has a strong track record of revenue growth, growing Brooks Life Sciences from $60 million to over $300 million, and we are excited to have him on board driving forward Stirling UltraCold’s strategy!
Genetesis Adds Strategic Investors in Series B Funding
Genetesis successfully raised a $9.2M Series B with TDK and an unannounced Fortune 25 company. See the press release here.
Ohio Innovation Fund, 629 N. High Street, 4th Floor, Columbus, Ohio 43215, USA
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