Tatyana Hower: JobsOhio Ventures

In our Meet a VC series, we sit down with NVCA members to share the people, perspectives, and convictions behind the venture capital industry. This spotlight features Tatyana Hower, Managing Partner of JobsOhio Ventures, an evergreen venture fund investing in high-growth technology companies with strategic ties to Ohio.

JobsOhio Ventures offers a distinctive view of the breadth of venture capital. The firm combines disciplined investment, long-term partnership, regional economic development, and access to a national network of co-investors. Its work demonstrates how venture capital can connect founders not only with financing, but also with the institutions, customers, expertise, and relationships required to build durable companies.

Q: How do you see the world?

JobsOhio Ventures (JOV) is a $270 million evergreen family of venture funds focused on direct investments in high-growth technology companies with strategic ties to Ohio. We primarily invest at the Series A stage, with initial check sizes ranging from $250,000 to $3 million. While we do not lead rounds, we reserve for pro-rata, and often super pro-rata, participation in follow-on financings. As one of the largest venture vehicles of its kind in the Midwest, JOV operates similarly to a corporate venture arm: grounded first in financial return, while also supporting the growth and retention of venture-scalable technologies and businesses across the region.

Our parent organization, JobsOhio, is itself a unique model for economic development in the United States. JobsOhio is a private, nonprofit corporation funded through the profits generated by Ohio’s statewide liquor enterprise. This independent funding structure provides long-term stability and allows the organization to operate with a longer investment horizon than traditional public economic development entities.

Today, JOV has invested in more than 70 companies and supported 200+ financing rounds alongside leading venture firms across the country. Our model offers several distinct advantages. First, we provide a highly efficient point of access to many of the most promising venture-backed companies emerging from Ohio’s innovation ecosystem. Much of our healthcare portfolio, for example, is built around best IP and commercializable opportunities from leading institutions including Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University, The Ohio State University, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Second, through JobsOhio, we maintain relationships with many of the largest enterprises operating in the state, creating opportunities to facilitate commercial partnerships, customer introductions, and strategic collaborations for our portfolio companies.

We are also proud to co-invest alongside many prominent NVCA member firms. Founders and investors often value our collaborative approach: we align closely with lead investors, move quickly through diligence and closing processes, do not seek board seats, and provide the long-term flexibility that comes with an evergreen structure.

Q: How do you make investment decisions?

As a co-investment only fund, our approach is highly relationship-driven and disciplined. We place significant emphasis on the quality, conviction, and track record of lead investors, as well as the strength of the broader syndicate supporting a company. We believe strong syndicate alignment is particularly important in today’s market environment because building enduring companies requires long-term partnership and shared conviction. At the founder level, we look for objectivity, commercial vision, and coachability. While prior CEO experience can certainly be valuable, we do not view it as a prerequisite for success. What matters more is a founder’s ability to assess opportunities realistically, adapt as markets evolve, and maintain a clear understanding of how their technology or product creates meaningful commercial value.

Q: What have you learned through experience?

One of the most important lessons we’ve learned is the importance of maintaining objectivity throughout the investment lifecycle. Markets shift, operating environments change, and companies inevitably face challenges. In those moments, it becomes critical to focus on real metrics, commercial traction, and the underlying strength of the business when evaluating how to navigate short-term volatility.

Experience has also taught us that investors cannot fall in love with the technology or the founding team alone. No matter how compelling the mission may be, our responsibility is to maintain a clear-eyed view of a company’s commercial potential and identify the areas where we can add meaningful value as partners. At the same time, we’ve learned that value creation extends well beyond capital itself. Founders benefit most from investors who can serve as thought partners, provide strategic guidance, facilitate introductions, and help companies access the broader resources and relationships needed to scale successfully.

Q: How do you support founders?

Another advantage of working across a broad portfolio is the ability to leverage prior experiences and pattern recognition to help founders navigate complex decisions. Whether those conversations involve hiring, go-to-market strategy, partnerships, fundraising, or long-term scaling priorities, we aim to serve as a trusted resource in the boardroom and beyond.

One of our most differentiated advantages is the ability to leverage the broader JobsOhio platform to create meaningful connections between portfolio companies and established enterprises across the state. Through this unique access point, we are often able to facilitate pilot opportunities, co-development partnerships, commercial introductions, and strategic relationships that can accelerate growth well beyond the initial investment. We view that ongoing support as a critical part of how we help founders scale durable businesses over the long term.

Q: What is your perspective on the ecosystem and community?

We believe the Ohio venture ecosystem is still in the early stages of what will likely be a significant transformation over the next ten years. The region already possesses many of the core ingredients necessary to support innovation at scale, including strong entrepreneurial talent, world-class academic and clinical institutions, and deep technical expertise across healthcare and emerging technologies.

Over the past five years, companies within our portfolio have about $2 billion in capital, with about 70% coming from 100+ investors outside of Ohio. We believe that level of external participation reflects growing national recognition of the quality of companies and founders emerging from the region.

From a sector perspective, we continue to see strong opportunity across healthcare innovation, including healthtech and medtech, driven by the strength of institutional IP. For example, Cleveland Diagnostic, spin-out from The Cleveland Clinic and backed by Novo Holdings is eliminating unnecessary prostate biopsies by introducing IsoClear, a non-invasive testing platform that determines a protein’s origin based on its structure. We also see compelling opportunities emerging in deep technology sectors connected to Ohio’s long-standing industrial and manufacturing expertise. Niobium Microsystems is creating purpose-built silicon and an encrypted cloud platform, solving hardware challenges that have long prevented traditional processors from using fully homomorphic encryption, and enabling computation on encrypted data without decryption.

Q: Any closing reflections?

We are optimistic about the long-term trajectory of both the venture market and the broader innovation ecosystem developing across Ohio. While the market environment continues to evolve, we believe periods of transformation often create the greatest opportunities for disciplined investors and resilient founders. More broadly, we believe successful venture ecosystems are built through long-term collaboration between founders, investors, institutions, and strategic partners. As more companies scale successfully and attract national attention, we expect the region’s momentum to continue accelerating in meaningful ways over the coming decade.

We’re proud to have JobsOhio Ventures as part of the NVCA membership. To learn more about JobsOhio Ventures, visit: www.jobsohioventures.com/