Member Profile: The Ohio State University
Name: The Ohio State University – Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship
Location: Columbus
Industry: Higher Education
What We Do:
The Tim and Kathleen Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship connects students, faculty and staff with resources to support the creation of startup companies and the development of entrepreneurial skillsets. We do this through four pillars:
Capital – We provide access to dilutive and non-dilutive sources of capital for technology validation and startup acceleration.
Venture Development – We work with inventors and entrepreneurs to explore the market, identify the value proposition, create the business plan and develop financing strategies.
Talent – We pair our faculty inventors with high-quality business leads as partners; develop faculty, student and alumni startup founders through mentoring services; create internship opportunities with startup companies; and connect our startups with national accelerators.
Programs – We create and provide workshops, seminars and digital resources on a range of entrepreneurial skills and topics through a national network of resources at The Ohio State University.
Our goal is to create a coordinated, collaborative ecosystem across the university to maximize entrepreneurship by providing students, faculty, staff and alumni opportunities to engage with the rapidly-growing startup community in central Ohio and beyond.
What’s a Trend You’re Seeing/Prediction for the Future:
More people are going to start their own company or work for a startup.
Everyone is learning they can accomplish a lot in this virtual environment. We can connect with customers, vendors and other resources through technology rather than travel. As transactions become increasingly frictionless, it becomes less expensive to launch your own business. And some businesses may discover that it is more efficient to employ some of their workers as contractors rather than employees. This trend was already well under way before the pandemic and will most likely accelerate.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, entrepreneur statistics reveal growth of more than 1.5 million companies between 2015 and 2018. American small businesses employed 59.9 million people in 2019, which represents almost half of the country’s entire private workforce.
But, it’s not just the individual entrepreneur. University technology is increasingly being commercialized through startups. University innovations are typically very early-stage and require significant resources to further develop. Established companies have been seeking more mature, de-risked assets. Private capital deployed through startups is the critical bridge needed to take a university-developed technology and transform it into a product that can be brought to the market.
Ohio State’s active startup portfolio totals 93 companies, up from 78 in 2018 and nearly double the number from five years ago. The majority of these companies – nearly 80% - is currently headquartered in Ohio, a clear sign of Ohio’s thriving innovation and entrepreneurial economy.
A Problem/Challenge We Are Working To Solve:
Creating a successful startup is hard work. Startups must have access to critical early-stage capital, motivated management, experienced mentors and talented technologists to have a chance of achieving success. The Keenan Center offers connections to all of these resources.
The Keenan Center establishes relationships with early stage venture funds and angel investors to whom we can showcase our startup companies. We also work to connect our startups with grant opportunities from a range of federal and state agencies.
The Keenan Center offers a variety of events and programs to meet the needs of our constituents. We coordinate the Best of Student Startups pitch competition and LaunchpadOSU, a startup weekend event, both of which focus on the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and new venture creation. We also facilitate lunch and learn workshops, bootcamps and an entrepreneurial leadership summit that center around more advanced entrepreneurship topics.
The Buckeye Venture Mentor Service, offered through the Keenan Center, is an educational program formed to support entrepreneurial activity within the Ohio State community. It is based on the belief that a fledgling business is far more likely to thrive when an entrepreneur with an idea can draw on the advice and guidance of a group of mentors with proven skill and experience.
Why is Ohio a great place to do business?
Ohio embraces startups. In 2018, Columbus was named one of the top ten rising cities for startups by Forbes magazine.
Of course, we believe that Ohio State is a big factor in creating this environment. The university is a tremendous source of innovation, knowledge and talent – the fuel that drives startups.
The support of the state has also been critical. The Ohio Third Frontier has invested more than $2 billion since 2003 to create a statewide network of resources to build and scale cutting-edge technology companies.
But, at the end of the day, the best reason to do business in Ohio is our people. Every day, we have the good fortune to engage with the motivated, passionate, dedicated, talented, brilliant innovators and entrepreneurs of our community!