Refinery Ventures

Refinery Ventures is an early-stage venture firm based in Cincinnati, Ohio, established in 2017. The firm specializes in investing in sectors such as information technology, digital health, and human capital technology. It focuses on early scale companies, providing support and mentorship to teams transitioning from post-seed to Series A funding. Refinery Ventures manages a venture capital fund that targets investments in the United States and Canada, specifically in healthcare technology systems, SaaS, and enterprise software industries. The firm aims to invest in 10 to 12 startups, fostering growth and innovation within these sectors.

Joe Otto

Venture Partner

Stephen Rodriguez

Venture Partner

Timothy Schigel

Managing Partner

Todd Schwarzinger

Venture Partner

Adam Swick

Principal

Past deals in Ohio

FRAYT

Series A in 2023
Frayt (Freight) is a on-demand, final mile delivery platform. Frayt in enables Businesses & Retailers to offer same hour delivery to their customers coast to coast. Frayt is the trusted delivery partner of Party City, Krogers, Sherwin Williams and many more.

Astronomer

Series A in 2020
Astronomer, Inc., founded in 2014 and based in Cincinnati, Ohio, provides a managed platform for Apache Airflow, catering specifically to data engineers. The company focuses on enabling organizations to harness the capabilities of Apache Airflow through its flagship offering, Astronomer Cloud, which is recognized as a leading Airflow-as-a-Service solution. Astronomer is dedicated to enhancing standards of scale, performance, and reliability for enterprise-level data orchestration. Its platform encompasses a comprehensive suite of products and services that facilitate the deployment, management, and scaling of data pipelines. This includes features for isolated resource allocation, user access, and account management, allowing data engineers, scientists, and analysts to efficiently build, run, and monitor pipelines-as-code for effective business analytics.

Astronomer

Seed Round in 2019
Astronomer, Inc., founded in 2014 and based in Cincinnati, Ohio, provides a managed platform for Apache Airflow, catering specifically to data engineers. The company focuses on enabling organizations to harness the capabilities of Apache Airflow through its flagship offering, Astronomer Cloud, which is recognized as a leading Airflow-as-a-Service solution. Astronomer is dedicated to enhancing standards of scale, performance, and reliability for enterprise-level data orchestration. Its platform encompasses a comprehensive suite of products and services that facilitate the deployment, management, and scaling of data pipelines. This includes features for isolated resource allocation, user access, and account management, allowing data engineers, scientists, and analysts to efficiently build, run, and monitor pipelines-as-code for effective business analytics.

Folio Photonics

Seed Round in 2019
Folio Photonics is developing an optical data storage disc with two Terabyte capacity manufactured using a highly scalable, low-cost method. It also redefines archival data storage with its modern optical solution. Their patented solution, the data film disc is disruptive in cost, capacity, and archival lifetime. The company also develops optical data storage discs and systems. Folio Photonics was founded in 2012 and is based in Solon, Ohio, USA.

Halo Health

Series A in 2017
Doc Halo’s clinical communication platform is transforming patient care by streamlining real-time communication among physicians, nurses and staff. The mobile app and online console provide secure, HIPAA-compliant texting. Robust care coordination tools integrate with hospital systems to allow instant access to EHRs, critical and clinical teams, physician on-call schedules, call centers, labs and directories. Exclusively focused on healthcare, Doc Halo is used by some of the most prestigious organizations in the country.