Author: Scott Jacobs

QCA Ventures Chairman and Founder Tony Shipley was featured on the season 9 premiere of the Invisible Ink podcast hosted by Achiiv Founder Shubha K. Chakravarthy.

In this episode Tony shares what really builds (or breaks) investor trust, and why the smartest founders treat diligence as strategy, not defense.

Check out the full episode to learn how investors really run due diligence — and how founders can use that process to inspire confidence. Watch the episode in its entirety here.  

Invisible Ink cuts through the hype, and presents raw, unfiltered conversations with the investors and founders who’ve built the companies you admire. Each episode zooms in on the specifics of what it takes to get funded, demystifying the process and giving entrepreneurs actionable insights.

QCA Ventures is proud to see four companies from our community recognized on the Inc. Magazine 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies. 

• Cloverleaf – QCA portfolio company founded by Darrin Murriner
• Braintrust – CEO Andrew Wyant – QCA member
• Interlink Cloud Advisors – CEO & Co-founder Matt Scherocman – QCA member
• Kinettix – Founder and CEO Chad Mattix – QCA member

Congratulations to these outstanding companies and founders. This recognition is a testament to their vision, leadership, hard work, and dedication.

At QCA, we’re committed to fueling innovation by backing exceptional founders and high-growth, high-tech companies that can shape industries and strengthen communities.

Learn more about QCA and the companies we invest in here: https://www.qca.com/.

QCA Executive Director Scott Jacobs was recently featured on TiE SoCal Angels investor Anshuman Sinha’s podcast Pitch. Fund. Scale. They discussed the realities behind startup funding and valuable insights every founder and angel investor should hear. 

Scott shared insights on: 
– What founders get wrong about funding
– How QCA Ventures backs startups that create real impact
– The mindset shift every entrepreneur needs
– Why mentorship sometimes outweighs capital
– Building strong startup ecosystems beyond Silicon Valley

Tune into learn more about what actually gets angel investors to say “yes.” Check out the full podcast here. 

More Women Are Angel Investing: Key Advice From 3 Industry Leaders

In a world teetering on the edge of economic and cultural upheaval, one interesting trend gives reason for hope. That is the number of women starting businesses in unprecedented numbers. In April, Forbes reported on findings from a Gusto report which showed that 49% of all new businesses in the U.S. in 2024 were female founded- a 69% increase since 2019 and the highest share recorded in the report’s five-year history. Yet a funny contradiction also exists in the parallel gap in venture capital allocations. Data shows that sole female founders received an average of just 2.4% of global VC funding over that same period, a figure that has not budged above a single percentage point in the industry’s history.

So if women are starting businesses at record rates, with little movement in venture dollars, the key question is who is writing them checks?

A potential answer lies in the rise of female angel investors. While total U.S. angel investment dropped from $22.3 billion in 2022 to $18.6 billion in 2023, the share of women in angel investing surged to 46.7%, representing a 39% increase in two years. It marks a remarkable shift in a space long dominated by men, signaling a new era where women are shifting norms and vying for a more inclusive and sustainable startup ecosystem.

>>Read the Forbes article in its entirety here. 

Energize your thinking about your start-up!

CINCINNATI–More than 100 entrepreneurs, angel investors, mentors, and business experts from across the region will assemble in Cincinnati to support founders at the 25^th Annual QCA Ventures’ Entrepreneur Boot Camp, June 10-11, 2025.

Our subject matter experts will teach you just about everything you need to know to get your business concept from napkin stage to MVP and beyond. Session titles include:

• Do You REALLY Have a Product?
• Business Model Innovation
• Leveraging Intellectual Property
• Systematic Inventive Thinking
• Growth Hacking: Marketing Your Startup
• Social Media for startups
• Your Legal Infrastructure
• Financing Your Venture: How start-up financing works
• Financial Statements for Managers & Investors
• Building the Internal and External Teams
• View from the Heavens: What Investors Look For

In addition to a full agenda of educational sessions and panel discussions, entrepreneurs and start-up founders will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one (in most cases one-on-three) with local angel investors and business experts for advice and mentoring about your business concept.

LOCATION
Alloy Growth Labs
1776 Mentor Avenue Room 129
Norwood, OH 45212

Meet and ask questions of headliner entrepreneurs: Serial entrepreneur and QCA member Ravi Manchala of Smart Data Systems, Chris Bergman Founder of FamilyTech (Choremonster)/Gylee Games at QCA’s 25^th Annual Entrepreneur Boot Camp.

Register for the QCA 25^th Annual Entrepreneur Boot Camp

About QCA Education Foundation

QCA Education Foundation (dba Startup College®) was founded by QCA Ventures’ (QCA) as a resource to improve entrepreneurial success and angel investment decision making, promote angel investment as an alternative asset class, and leverage its more than 210 members from 22 states to drive current portfolio companies to faster and more successful exits. The QCA Education Foundation supports the QCA mission: to generate superior stakeholder returns by providing capital and active counsel to high-potential entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are offered educational programs and support, through its 2-day Entrepreneur Boot Camp (800 founders participating in 24 years) and an entrepreneurial support program (QCA Morning Mentoring^TM has mentored 1500 founders over 19 years). QCA promotes angel investing smart practices through its support of the ACA’s (Angel Capital Association) Angel Investor Foundation and the ACA’s Angel University, as well as providing ongoing training for its members. QCA members provide an average of 50,000 hours per year pro-bono supporting founders. Since 2000, QCA members have directly invested over $120 million in more than 115 portfolio companies. The total capital invested in these companies, including QCA members’ capital, syndication partners’ capital, follow-on venture capital funds and venture debt is nearly $1 billion.

Via the Cincinnati Business Courier

A mutual fund managed in Cincinnati that’s one of only about a dozen of its type in the country has been posting results that rank among the top in the nation.

The 1919 Socially Responsive Balanced Fund has been cranking out results in the top 20% of its peers around the country.

Ron Bates, managing director and portfolio manager at 1919 Investment Counsel’s downtown office and QCA Member, is lead portfolio manager of the fund and has locally based analysts tracking how responsible companies are. That’s in addition to how well they perform based on more traditional measures.

Bates is a veteran of the responsible investing world. He has managed the 1919 Socially Responsive Balanced Fund for nearly two decades, dating back to January 2007. And he has focused on responsible investing for 30 years.

>>Learn more about the Bates’s work with the 1919 Socially Responsive Balanced Fund via the Cincinnati Business Courier article here. 

More than 100 entrepreneurs, angel investors and business experts gathered At Interact for Health June 4-5 to become the next wave of entrepreneurs and start-up savants at the 19th Annual Entrepreneur Boot Camp. The hands-on workshop started in 2001 has now trained over 643 entrepreneurs and provides an opportunity for anyone thinking about a start-up, small business owners, founders and start-up teams to learn from angel investors and experts about how to navigate the entrepreneurial waters.   Among the topics on the agenda are intellectual property, strategic marketing, contracts, social media, pitching angels and financials. The presentations included educational sessions, panel discussions and one-on-three (or 4!) meetings with local angels and other mentors from our local community.   Included on the agenda is Thomas Humphrey, partner at Wood Herron & Evans, who has now presented at every single Entrepreneur Boot Camp, his 19th session!   “The Boot Camp is an amazing opportunity to connect those with a start-up vision with the knowledge, resources and motivation they need to jumpstart or continue to build their dream,” said Humphrey. “I have had the great opportunity to participate in the Boot Camp since its inception, and every year I walk away inspired by individual entrepreneurs and the start-up community that is thriving in Cincinnati. This an event like no other, and it continues to grow because of the cooperation from those that want to learn how to be successful and those with the desire to share their success.”   Additional speakers will include:

• Tony Shipley, founder and chairman of QCA
• Marvin Abrinica, founder of Thrivera
• Michael Hurley, partner at Calfee Halter
• Mary Newman, partner at Dinsmore & Shohl
• Scott Mindrum, QCA member, founder and CEO of CRäKN
• Sally Kay, consultant and 36-year veteran of The Dow Chemical Company and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare

  The Boot Camp will be held again next year on June 2-3 at Interact for Health. More information about the event can be found here: https://www.qcabootcamp.com/. Tickets are still available at online, you can register here: https://tinyurl.com/yys8avap   The event is sponsored by Startup College®, a registered trademark of the QCA, as well as marquee sponsor, HCDC Business Center; and supporting sponsor, KeyBank.

There’s a great deal of entrepreneurial buzz happening on the campus of Miami University. The Miami Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies is an internationally recognized program providing immersive, real-world experiences. The program has been ranked among the “Top 10 Undergraduate Public Schools for Entrepreneurship Studies” in the nation for 10 years in a row by Entrepreneur Magazine and The Princeton Review®.

The program is led in part by Mark Lacker, John W. Altman Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at Miami, helps students understand that they don’t have to be middle aged to be entrepreneurs, and there really is no better time than the present.

“The thesis of the program is that you learn how to start a business by doing it. Our program is practice based, not theory,” said Lacker. “Entrepreneurship requires creativity, and social and technical skills, and while many students may have those attributes, they still need a place to practice. That’s where Miami comes in, as well as organizations such as QCA.”

QCA and its members, several of which are alums of the university, are regulars on campus, helping to strengthen the programs commitment to immersive experiences.  

 

“QCA is one of the bellwethers in the region in terms of helping organizations start and scale,” said Lacker. “Partnering with QCA members is natural for us because of our practice-based curriculum that puts students in the field.”

It’s not uncommon for QCA members Scott Miller, Scott Avera, Kevin Martin, among others to be on campus judging business plan competitions, speaking on panels or talking to students about how to be entrepreneurs.

Lacker added, “We are teaching students how to be entrepreneurs, and who better to partner with us on that effort than angel investors who have built successful businesses, are using their own money to invest in other companies, and are ready and willing to share their experiences?”

Lacker values the growing entrepreneurial community in Cincinnati, and the understanding from the players in the ecosystem that everything starts with education, with programs such as Morning Mentoring, the Entrepreneurial Boot Camp and eKickStart.

“I was in HCBC 15 years ago, and one of the greatest things about being in that building was that if I didn’t know something, I could get help from someone in the same hallway. We have a really unique support system in the region, from the relationships between big companies and startups, to the handful of accelerators and the second largest angel network in the country. It’s why our entrepreneur students can be successful in Cincinnati.”

Earlier this year, T-Pro Solutions, a provider of trade promotion optimization solutions, was acquired by Blacksmith Applications out of Lawrence, Ma. QCA was an early investor in the Columbus, Ohio-based company, participating in two rounds of funding with the first closing in the summer of 2015. What made the investment unique is the collaborative nature of the funding, which included Rev1 Ventures and the Ohio Tech Angel Fund, in addition to QCA.

Terry Ziegler, CEO of T-Pro Solutions, valued the willingness of QCA and the other groups to work together to get the deal done. The Angel groups shared due diligence, but for QCA, which has a membership base full of former consumer packaged good experience, Ziegler sensed the group wanted a partnership with the young company.

“QCA did a significant amount of business due diligence, and they spent time looking under the covers, reviewing our documentation, and our team could tell they wanted to be partners, and not simply passive investors,” said Ziegler.

From the lengthy due diligence review, Ziegler selected two members of QCA to be part of the company’s board, one as a member, the other as an observer.

“Because Alan Roth’s and Terry Wright’s unique skillset and knowledge, one from P&G and 8451, the other with startup experience, they understood what it takes to acquire a customer and provided guidance around our sales process that really benefited us,” added Ziegler. “One of Terry’s areas was go-to-market strategy and he was a great sounding board for how to improve our process and proposals.”

After hitting certain milestones and succeeding in acquiring customers, the company wanted to scale the business. Roth took the lead, bringing in a consultant to assist T-Pro leadership take the next steps, which became a pivotal moment in the company’s history.

“We always asked the board for help, but Alan insisted that we engage him and QCA even more,” said Ziegler. “Alan brought in a consultant at the right time, helping us to define an incredible mission, vision and values, and from that, we continued to grow until our exit earlier this year. This was just one more thing that came from his strategic leadership.”

When asked what he would say to an entrepreneur looking to work with QCA, Ziegler said, “it’s important that you spend time with the people, find out who are the ones that want to get involved. Your early investors will likely spend a lot of time with you, and if you don’t use their skills and experience, it’s a waste. They will go to war with you. In the end, money is a commodity, so it should always be about the people.”

More than 100 entrepreneurs, angel investors and business experts are gathering in Cincinnati in June to help train the next wave of entrepreneurs and start-up savants at the 19th Annual Entrepreneur Boot Camp. The hands-on workshop started in 2001 has trained over 600 entrepreneurs and provides an opportunity for anyone thinking about a start-up, small business owners, founders and start-up teams to learn from angel investors and experts about how to navigate the entrepreneurial waters.

Among the topics on the agenda are intellectual property, strategic marketing, contracts, social media, pitching angels and financials. The presentations include educational sessions, panel discussions and one-on-one or one-on-three meetings with local angels.

Included on the agenda is Thomas Humphrey, partner at Wood Herron & Evans, who will be presenting for the 19th time at the Boot Camp.

“The Boot Camp is an amazing opportunity to connect those with a start-up vision with the knowledge, resources and motivation they need to jumpstart or continue to build their dream,” said Humphrey. “I have had the great opportunity to participate in the Boot Camp since its inception, and every year I walk away inspired by individual entrepreneurs and the start-up community that is thriving in Cincinnati. This an event like no other, and it continues to grow because of the cooperation from those that want to learn how to be successful and those with the desire to share their success.”

Additional speakers will include:

• Tony Shipley, founder and chairman of QCA
• Marvin Abrinica, founder of Thrivera
• Michael Hurley, partner at Calfee Halter
• Mary Newman, partner at Dinsmore & Shohl
• Scott Mindrum, QCA member, founder and CEO of CRäKN
• Sally Kay, consultant and 36-year veteran of The Dow Chemical Company and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare

The Boot Camp is on June 4-5 at Interact for Health. More information about the event can be found here: https://www.qcabootcamp.com/. Tickets are still available at online, you can register here: https://tinyurl.com/yys8avap

The event is sponsored by Startup College®, a registered trademark of the QCA, as well as marquee sponsor, HCDC Business Center; and supporting sponsor, KeyBank.