As an investor in Biolectrics, a company that makes a battery-powered mouthpiece – think sports mouth guard – that treats periodontal diseases with electric stimulation, Paul Ruflin began thinking about the device's potential in other applications.
Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise has just been awarded $350,000 to continue serving business startups in Northeast Ohio. GLIDE is one of 11 technology incubators in Ohio to receive state funding through the 2014 Ohio Third Frontier Incubation Program, a program that recognizes top technology incubators fostering new businesses in the communities they serve.
The Ohio Third Frontier Commission voted Wednesday to approve more than $12.8 million to fund cutting-edge biomedical companies and help entrepreneurs and technology start-up companies get their businesses off the ground.
The Innovation Fund, a pre-seed fund for technology startups in Northeast Ohio, said it has awarded $25,000 grants to each of six young companies.
The new tech transfer office, which is based at Lorain County Community College, is designed to give local inventors working out of basements and garages some of the same business development resources that many universities provide to inventive faculty members.
The goal of the OCTT is to help community inventors who don't have tech transfer offices at their disposal turn their ideas into products.