The Stark Entrepreneurship Alliance is a one-stop shop for early-stage and start-up companies in Stark County, OH. The alliance provides assistance in all aspects of creating and growing a business including business consulting, recruiting management, financing, real estate, product innovation, mentoring and coaching, legal and accounting, and more.

We have the resources to assist simple and more complex start-ups involving technology, capital investments and national or global sales opportunities.

Stark County, Ohio is on the move. Our county offers a lifestyle filled with fun activities and events, affordable housing and excellent educational institutions. It’s also about bringing the future into reality. We have a convenient, growing airport and growing service industries. Add to the mix several choice golf courses, lakes, wonderful parks, close-by major attractions and it’s easy to see why Stark County truly is a a great place to live, work and play.

The Stark Economic Development Board is proud to provide this site as a resource for you. We’re optimistic about Stark County. You will be too as you learn what’s happening now and into the future.

The SDB and Stark County share in promoting Northeast Ohio with ClevelandPlus. The area is filled with vitality and vigor. Stark County is a major reason why. We have a strong workforce with talent and experience. In 2006, the ClevelandPlus Region was named one of the hottest regions for entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur Magazine – higher than San Francisco, Boston, Seattle and New York. Plus, Stark County is a place that seamlessly blends historic charm with a vision for the future.

JumpStart provides intensive, high-impact assistance to diverse Northeast Ohio founders leading high potential early-stage companies, working one-on-one with entrepreneurs to establish and achieve value-creating milestones of growth. These include things such as raising capital, generating revenue, hiring employees, forming a board of directors, testing the commercial viability of a product or service, and moving a product or service into the market. No- and low-cost technical assistance may be provided to our clients through entrepreneurs-in-residence as well as in-house marketing and talent attraction/retention programs and as part of JumpStart’s Burton D. Morgan Mentoring Program. In addition, we promote and provide educational and informational events for interested entrepreneurs and community members via events, multimedia efforts and online content.

JumpStart also has its own fund and invests early stage dollars in Northeast Ohio-based companies positioned to excel in high opportunity markets, focusing on entrepreneurs with novel, innovative technologies.

Finally, JumpStart manages and is a partner in an interconnected Network of Greater Cleveland entrepreneurial support programs—including incubators and accelerators, investors, research foundations and education programs—that supply young companies with the capital, mentoring, space and connections they need. Together, these organizations provide an efficient, complementary and cost-effective continuum of resources to the region’s most promising firms.

The Braintree Business Development Center is a non-profit regional entrepreneurial assistance organization (often called a business incubator) supporting small businesses in Northeast Ohio, particularly Mansfield, Ashland, and Canton. Since 1986 over one hundred start-up companies have found their first home with us. We focus on advanced manufacturing, alternative energy, information technology, bioscience, and agtech. We also run the community coworking spots in both Mansfield and Canton.

TechGROWTH delivers intensive operational assistance through “Executives in Residence” who validate opportunities and prepare companies for investment.  In addition, TechGROWTH provides small, competitive “Growth Funding” to qualifying companies to overcome targeted commercialization obstacles, pre-seed investments providing “first-in” funding for technology startups, and access to a regional network of angel investors for “follow-on” capital needs as well as access to venture capital markets to fund the “scale up” of production, sales, and marketing.   TechGROWTH is funded by an Ohio Third Frontier grant with support from Ohio University and private capital.  TechGROWTH’s impact shows a leverage ratio of over $9 of follow-on resources acquired for client companies for every $1 of state money invested, achieving over $218 million flowing into the region over its first seven years.

The Youngstown Edison Incubator Corporation, operating as YBI, is a 501(c) 3 charitable, non-profit corporation. With a physical presence in downtown Youngstown, it is an active collaborator and resource provider in a 21 county region of northeast Ohio, but most specifically in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties. YBI focuses its marketing, portfolio company recruiting, networking and resource acquisition efforts on a larger geographic market comprised of the Cleveland to Pittsburgh corridor seeking to attract those technology entrepreneurs to the Mahoning Valley.

Located in Warren, Ohio, TBEIC is designed to be a mixed-used facility aimed at accelerating the development of early stage energy technologies.  Launching in 2011-12, TBEIC will be both a home to early stage companies working their way to market, as well as a proving ground for technologies from universities, private corporations and government laboratories.