For ten years, StartupCincy Week has rallied around a simple belief: world-class companies can be built right here in Cincinnati.
From October 5–8, founders, investors, and ecosystem champions from across the region gathered for the 10th annual StartupCincy Week under the theme “Building Boldly.”
This year, we saw the city show up in more ways than one.
The city showed up
The week kicked off Monday morning at Union Hall, where Mayor Aftab Pureval shared why entrepreneurship is so important to our local economy and culture. Opening with the mayor set the tone for everything that followed. In Cincinnati, entrepreneurship isn't a side conversation.
City partners didn't just show up. They took the stage. During “Pop-Up to Permanent: Rethinking the Path to Brick-and-Mortar,” Alex Zyndorf of Model Group and Christy Samad of 3CDC sat alongside founders Heather Brady of Etxe Basque Steakhouse and Sophia Blasi of Urban Luxe.
The question on the table: what if property developers acted more like accelerators for small businesses? Using Race Street Collective and other Cincinnati experiments as a case study, the panel dug into smaller spaces, shorter leases, mentorship, and shared resources. Then they invited the room to help design a better on-ramp from pop-up to permanent.
Ohio showed up, too. JobsOhio CFO Andrew Deye and REDI Cincinnati CEO Kimm Lauterbach sat down with Pete Metz of the Cincinnati Regional Chamber for “Ohio's #1 for Business. Now What?” The state is having a moment, and the conversation dug into what it will take to keep it going: the big bets, opportunities, and priorities that will shape Cincinnati and Ohio's next decade of growth.
To close out the week, regional leaders came together for “Growing Our Region Through Bold Bets.” Brendon Cull of the Cincinnati Regional Chamber, Julie Kirkpatrick of meetNKY and VisitCincy, and Abby Grimm of Cintrifuse talked about what happens when a region stops thinking organization by organization and starts making bigger bets together.
From economic development and talent to tourism and placemaking, it all comes back to one idea: when Cincinnati bets boldly on itself, we give the people building what's next even more reason to build it here.
The bets are paying off
Tuesday morning's Cintrifuse Annual Meeting put numbers on the board: Cintrifuse Capital investments have generated $630 million in national follow-on capital for our region over the last 10 years. Investors are backing the companies being built here.
Founders are taking notice, too. We're seeing entrepreneurs relocate to Cincinnati from established startup hubs like San Francisco and Houston. Among them are Cintrifuse Capital portfolio company Simbryo, which moved from Houston to partner with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and AI Echo, which relocated to Cincinnati to join the inaugural cohort of our Emerging Founder Residency program.
The city's engagement and the founders choosing to build here are signaling the same thing: Cincinnati is fertile ground for entrepreneurship, and we believe it's where founders should be in the Midwest.
Validation on the global stage
It was only fitting that at the end of StartupCincy Week, PitchBook made an announcement of its own. Its newly released 2026 Global VC Ecosystem Rankings named Cincinnati the #3 fastest-growing venture capital ecosystem in the world, behind only Austin and San Francisco.
The rankings measure growth in venture investment, exits, and fundraising activity over the past six years. Cincinnati's Growth Score of 69.1 put us ahead of ecosystems like Philadelphia, New York, and Denver in the ranking of who's growing fastest, not who's biggest.
This is a big deal for StartupCincy and a testament to the founders, investors, corporations, universities, and ecosystem partners who have spent years building our startup community. We've always believed Cincinnati has what it takes to be a leading startup ecosystem. Now we're seeing that momentum recognized on the global stage.
What ten years means
We celebrated our region all week, only to have it further validated at the very end. Honestly, we couldn't have scripted a better way to mark ten years.
StartupCincy Week 2026 marked a decade of intentional ecosystem building, layered on top of more than two centuries of Cincinnati innovation. That decade has been about backing founders who refused to play it safe, and building the community, capital, and proof points that make bold moves possible here.
The rankings didn't create that momentum; they confirmed it.
Ten years in, we're done underselling what this city has built. We're done being the city people discover. We're the city founders should choose.
Emma O’Dell is Marketing & Communications Manager at Cintrifuse in Cincinnati, where she helps startups thrive through marketing, programming support, and community engagement. She’s worked in marketing communications and design project management, and holds a BA from Mount St. Joseph University.
