North Coast Ventures

North Coast Ventures (NCV), formerly the North Coast Angel Fund, is a Cleveland, Ohio-based early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2006 by Clay Rankin and Todd Federman, both of whom continue to serve as Managing Directors. NCV is built on an unusual capital structure: more than 400 members — the region's leading investors, entrepreneurs, and operating executives — making it the largest single-chapter investor group in the country. The 64-person team includes 7 partners and a 5-person full-time management staff. Since inception, NCV and its members have deployed over $100 million into nearly 80 Ohio-based companies that today employ more than 2,000 people at average salaries near $100,000. The firm runs two parallel vehicle families focused on B2B SaaS: the North Coast Angel Fund series, now on Angel Fund V and informed by a $5 million state funding allocation with a Seed-through-Series-A mandate; and the North Coast Venture Fund series, with its Acceleration Fund III targeting $50 million anchored by $10 million in state matching, focused on demonstration-stage B2B SaaS. NCV leads rounds and the firm made 4 investments during 2025. Portfolio companies include Remesh, Axuall, Employstream, Proformex, TandemStride, InnerActiv, Vytalize Health, Primum Health — a Columbus oncology platform co-led at seed with FCA Venture Partners — and 1Logtech, an AI-driven logistics company that raised $1.5 million in a Seed round in April 2025. NCV's thesis centers on highly scalable B2B SaaS solving large problems where the member network's domain expertise and relationships with regional Fortune 500 companies can deliver market-making reference customers. The model pairs patient capital with an unusually broad operating network, creating leverage that a conventional two-partner fund cannot match.