Our Collaborators

Ascend Innovations is a life science company co-owned by the Dayton region’s three major hospital networks: Premier Health, Kettering Health Network, and Dayton Children’s through the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association. Ascend’s role in the ESP is to generate/enable MedTech deal flow and provide critical service to technology startups.

Converge Technologies provides prototyping services to startups, easy connections to a large SME network, and implements ESP relevant programming. 2020 was notable in that Converge and EC partnered to establish an OTF pre-seed fund focused on the Dayton region—this is the first opportunity EC has had to be a part of a pre-seed fund.

Cornerstone Research Group (CRG) is a high-technology company delivering products and services to aerospace, defense, and industrial customers since 1997. CRG’s technology portfolio covers a broad range with primary emphasis in aerosystems, power and energy, medical and sensor technology, materials science, and advanced manufacturing. CRG’s primary role in the ESP is to provide significant back office and commercialization support for several defense-focused ESP clients as well as spin-out new clients based on its research efforts.

Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce (DACC) is heavily engaged in EC’s diversity, inclusion, and equity activities and provides meaningful connections for the ESP portfolio to the broader business community of the region. In 2021, EC and DACC launched Project Enginuity: a program that trained 60+ minority or woman-owned companies from around the country on how to engage and successfully leverage SBIR resources to hasten development of their technologies while also serving the needs of agency missions, particularly in the DoD.

Ikove is a startup nursery that commercializes technologies developed by research institutions by identifying market opportunities, bringing in an entrepreneur, and providing services and funding for the initial stages of a spinout. Ikove joined the ESP in 2020 and brings high quality deal flow, connections to investors, and entrepreneurial talent to the ecosystem.

Launch Dayton has been an EC partner since 2017 and is a collaborative effort to connect entrepreneurs and business owners to peers, resources, and supporters, and to tell the stories of our region’s thriving startup community. This community exists to support and inspire Daytonians who are starting and growing businesses. Launch Dayton partners believe everyone, regardless of their background, should have the opportunity to determine their own economic prosperity.

Parallax Advanced Research Corporation has been a collaborator on the EC’s ESP efforts since the original award in 2017. This collaboration is most visible through the efforts of the Launch Dayton team—a group of 3 Parallax employees who run various programs and efforts in the region.

Sinclair Community College joined the EC’s ESP in 2020. Sinclair was able to secure an NSF award to focus on UAV/UAS entrepreneurship and in early 2020 became the local partner with Goldman Sachs for its 10,000 Small Businesses program. Incorporating these efforts alongside Sinclair’s entrepreneurship curriculum has enhanced the EC’s ESP.

University of Dayton collaborates with the EC in several key efforts: launching the Hub at the Arcade, operating the Greater West Dayton Incubator, the annual Flyer Pitch competition, and being a source of potential technologies and entrepreneurs through its research institute—UDRI.

Wright Brothers Institute (WBI) is one of the EC’s oldest collaborators and continues to support the regional ecosystem through its focus on enabling the Air Force Research Lab to commercialize its portfolio of IP as well as connect with small businesses that might solve AFRL technical challenges.