Midwest Startup Scene Gets a New Incubator

An Indiana attorney and serial entrepreneur thinks he can help accelerate bright ideas into businesses, and he's making a business of doing just that.

Image: Istockphoto

Sometimes the scramble for talent, money and legal help is almost too much for an entrepreneur to take. And there’s a business in helping just those small business owners.

At least, that’s what Lafayette, Indiana, attorney and serial entrepreneur J. Eric Davis thinks. He announced this morning the formation of J.E.D. Venture Partners, LLC. While that sounds like a venture capital firm, the business is structured more like a business incubator, but one that provides talent and services instead of office space, according to a release.

That puts him in the heady company of such outfits as the San Francisco Bay area’s YCombinator, maybe the most famous of the incubators, even though he’s a long way from such startup hotbeds as Silicon Valley, Boston, or New York.

Still, Davis has experience as an attorney helping startups and inventors turn their ideas into business. He makes no mention of doling out money to startups. Instead, he’s prepared to help often-inexperienced entrepreneurs with the process of raising funds.

He has also co-founded and managed Copient Technologies, Inc., Arxan Technologies, Inc., and Kylin Therapeutics, Inc.

In announcing his new firm, Davis said: "It is time for an economic renaissance to reawaken American innovation and ingenuity. I started J.E.D. Venture Partners to accelerate the start-up and funding process for promising companies. In most cases entrepreneurs need more than just an attorney to help them get started. They need someone that understands technology development, fund-raising and how to launch a new product or service.”

No doubt, plenty of entrepreneurs would agree.

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