COLUMBUS — A veteran Central Ohio technology executive has been tapped to lead OH.io, the venture firm entrepreneur Ratmir Timashev launched in February with a pledge to invest $100 million of his own money into 100 local startups over five years.
Kevin Pohmer, most recently president of the Hexure insurance platform, was named chief business officer of OH.io Ventures Holding Inc., the firm announced this week. Timashev, the founder of Aelita Software and Veeam Software and a prominent Ohio State University benefactor, said Pohmer “has spent his career turning promising technology into durable businesses.”
OH.io aims to accelerate artificial intelligence and software startups by giving founders a go-to-market engine — marketing and sales expertise to find customers and grow revenue. “The No. 1 problem founders have is to build a go-to-market strategy,” Timashev said. “It’s a unique model; no one has done it before.”
Pohmer, a New York native who settled in Central Ohio two decades ago after earning an MBA from Ohio State, said most software startups are run by founders who understand building technology better than selling it. “The hardest thing to do is sell that product into the market,” he said, adding that OH.io’s vision is to give startups “a go-to-market engine in order to scale.”
