JumpStart’s Original Investment Fund Pays Off

JumpStart made good money on its original nonprofit investment fund — enough to sustain the organization’s efforts to invest in local tech startups for the foreseeable future while also paying for new programs designed to help entrepreneurs.

So far, JumpStart has more than doubled the $27 million put into the first version of its Evergreen Fund, CEO Ray Leach said. Through that fund, the nonprofit invested in 76 startups over nearly a decade, starting in 2004.

Several of the companies JumpStart invested in through that fund have been sold, and a few of them fetched high prices — CoverMyMeds in particular. In early 2017, McKesson Corp. acquired the medical software company in a deal that so far has generated nearly $1.37 billion for CoverMyMeds shareholders. That total could rise if CoverMyMeds hits performance targets in 2019.

Leach isn’t allowed to say how much money JumpStart made on the deal, but consider this: JumpStart brought in $23.63 million in investment income during the 12-month period ending on June 30, 2017, according to a Form 990 for that year. By comparison, the nonprofit made just $838,676 on its investments the previous fiscal year.

Read the full story at Crain’s Cleveland Business.