On the heels of previous announcements of venture capital firms opening offices in Northeast Ohio, the Plain Dealer is reporting yet another.  RiverVest Venture Partners out of St. Louis has announced plans to open an office in Cleveland around the first of the year:

RiverVest co-founder and managing director Tom Melzer is convinced his firm will find investment opportunities in Northeast Ohio.   “If we’re going to open an office in a particular geography, there has to be a critical mass of activity,” said Melzer, formerly president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “There definitely is that going on in Northeast Ohio.”

Critical Mass.  Northeast Ohio.  That sounds good!

RiverVest is an early-stage investor managing $150M in assets focused on promising medical-device, biotechnology and health-care companies.   Their plans are to open their office at BioEnterprise and have tapped Karen Spilizewski of BioEnterprise to be a part-time Vice President running their new office.  RiverVest joins three other VC firms and a hedge fund at the BioEnterprise location.

NEOinc congratulates Karen and all of Northeast Ohio on this exciting announcement.

Read RiverVest’s official press release.