Startups + VC
The Columbus fintech founder behind Financial Guard and IXN Tech steps in as Ratmir Timashev’s venture platform grows its team toward 50 and offers startups a deal with no upfront cost, a shared cut of new revenue and a goal of tripling sales within 18 months.
OH.io Ventures Holding Inc., the Columbus performance venture platform launched in February by Veeam Software co-founder Ratmir Timashev, has named fintech executive Kevin Pohmer its chief business officer.
Timashev announced the hire on LinkedIn, where he pointed to Pohmer’s record of taking products to market and scaling them. “Kevin knows exactly what this takes,” Timashev said.
A Columbus fintech operator
Pohmer settled in Central Ohio about 20 years ago after earning an MBA from The Ohio State University. He founded the wealth management firm Financial Guard and served as its CEO and chairman until Legg Mason acquired it. He then led IXN Tech as CEO from 2017 to 2021 and steered the merger that formed Hexure, a sales and regulatory automation provider for the life insurance and annuity industry. He served as Hexure’s chief product officer, then its president.
He was also a founding member of Fintech71, the Columbus fintech accelerator created with JobsOhio.
In his own LinkedIn post, Pohmer said that “great technology doesn’t sell itself.” He explained that the companies that win build a go-to-market engine early, and that this is the advantage OH.io aims to give B2B software and AI startups.
How the model works
OH.io targets startups with $1 million to $2 million in revenue and sets a goal of tripling that revenue within 18 months, Timashev told Columbus CEO. Partner companies pay nothing up front. OH.io keeps all new revenue until its costs are covered, then splits the revenue it generates with the startup. At the end of a partnership, OH.io can invest up to $5 million in the company.
OH.io staff work as each partner’s Columbus-based sales and marketing arm, with initial teams of five to 10 people. After 18 months, startups can hire those employees directly, Pohmer noted.
The platform is courting international startups looking to break into the North American market, with the hope that they open a Columbus office. Pohmer described operations, logistics, health care and education as Ohio sectors where partners can scale quickly.
By the numbers
- $100 million: Timashev’s personal commitment to OH.io over five years
- Four startups partnered to date, including one graduate, Testkube
- 35 employees today, expected to reach about 50 by year’s end
- $5 million: maximum OH.io investment in a company at the end of a partnership
- 18 months: target window to triple a partner’s revenue
Early partners and a new home
Columbus-based RWX, a cloud platform that lets engineers test their code, began working with OH.io early this year. Co-founder and CEO Dan Manges told Columbus CEO that his background is in engineering, and that OH.io supplied the go-to-market tools, people and infrastructure his team would have struggled to build fast on its own.
OH.io is moving from temporary offices on Lane Avenue in Upper Arlington into COSI. The team expects to eventually relocate to the Center for Software Innovation in Ohio State’s Innovation District, funded by Timashev’s $110 million gift to the university.
