CINCINNATI -- Bob Coy, who led the transformation of CincyTech into a top Midwest venture development organization and seed fund, will step down from his role as president, CEO and director on Jan. 1, 2017.
CincyTech managing director Mike Venerable will succeed Coy as president, CEO and director, the organization announced in a news release Tuesday. Coy will remain engaged with CincyTech for six months as a special advisor to facilitate a smooth transition.
“It’s been an honor to work with this dedicated and vibrant community of investors and entrepreneurs, with forward-thinking civic leaders and public officials, and with a talented team. I am proud of what we’ve accomplished together,” said Coy. “Mike and I have worked side by side for a decade. He is an experienced entrepreneur and investor, and a creative thinker who has helped to build many of our portfolio companies. I have no doubt CincyTech will thrive under his leadership.”
Coy has been CincyTech’s president since 2005. Community leaders recruited him from St. Louis to turn CincyTech into an instrument that would catalyze the growth of high potential startups in southwest Ohio. Pairing guidance with seed capital, CincyTech has helped to build dozens of technology and life science companies in the region, which have created more than 800 jobs and raised more than a half billion dollars in investment.
“Bob arrived in Cincinnati at a time when it was difficult for startups to gain traction because they lacked access to essential ingredients: coaching, business services and seed capital at the earliest and riskiest stage,” said Jim Anderson, CincyTech’s chairman. “Bob designed CincyTech to address this problem in a way that helped to fuel the entrepreneurial revival in southwest Ohio.”
CincyTech matches funding from Ohio Third Frontier with locally raised dollars from a community of individual and institutional investors that has grown significantly with each of its four investment funds. CincyTech provides advice and capital to entrepreneurs, helps research institutions, including Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati, to commercialize technology, and catalyzes investment from individuals and institutions into regional companies.
“We have supported CincyTech from the beginning, and it has exceeded expectations under Bob's leadership,” said Bob Castellini, owner of the Cincinnati Reds and chairman of the Castellini Group of Companies. “Attracting more than $500 million of new investment in our region is impossible to ignore. I am confident that Bob has laid a firm foundation for the future of CincyTech, and look forward to continued success under Mike Venerable's leadership.”
Venerable has led the investment process since joining CincyTech in 2006 after a successful career as a software entrepreneur and investor.
“Bob’s pragmatic approach to building CincyTech to meet our region’s specific needs and leverage our strengths was transformational. His model for CincyTech took the best of his experiences elsewhere and applied it to our region’s entrepreneurial heritage and sources of innovation,” Venerable said. “I think we are both surprised by how far we’ve come as a region and organization, but he gets full credit for seeing what was possible. The organization’s reputation with investors, founders, local supporters and the state of Ohio can be credited to Bob’s hard work, creativity and integrity.”
