Tatyana met her first tech founder while she was a commercial banker, in a time when startup culture wasn’t yet ubiquitous in the United States, let alone in Ohio. In one of Tatyana’s earliest encounters with the realm, a passionate founder remarked that “bankers just [weren’t] brave enough” to get involved with a tech business like his. At the time, he was right: no banker was interested in doing anything with startups other than getting their deposits to secure collateral ratios traditional, a lot less risky commercial loans. That environment left founders’ critical needs, like a modest infusion of capital to get through FDA approval– unmet.

Such was the problem that Tatyana’s Emerging Technologies group at a $3B super-regional bank aimed to address: they aimed to be “brave enough” to offer founders the capital they needed, in their times of need. The Emerging Technologies group began by offering small bridge loans, modeling them after then unheard-of venture debt structures and becoming experts on all other (mostly non-dilutive) funding sources available for the Ohio founders.

Tatyana then joined BioEnterprise, a Cleveland Clinic – Case Western Reserve – University Hospitals founded firm, where she worked to find VC investable technologies, and bring the elusive coastal venture capital to guide them to exit. BioEnterprise served as an iBanker for its highly selective Service Portfolio, and worked with 300 companies that raised $2.5B dollars and reached 30 exits. At BioEnterprise, Tatyana also led two rounds of the Medical Growth Fund, a for-profit venture fund with individual and institutional LPs that invested in CoverMyMeds, one of the largest exits in Ohio history to date. 

I have seen or been part of all slices of financing structures that touch a startup’s winding journey. Each has its timing, reach and value. By far, venture capital is the most creative, daring and critical for the founders’ survival. Our JobsOhio Ventures team, by virtue of relationships and check size, is privileged to see and support all of the best venture-investable opportunities in Ohio.