Refinery

What is Refinery?

Refinery Ventures is a Midwestern-based venture capital firm that specializes in taking companies from early stages to Series A funding. They focus on founders who are poised for hyper-growth but may not yet have realized their full potential without proper guidance.

As entrepreneurs themselves, the Refinery team brings decades of experience in founding and investing, including venture capital. They operate with an understanding of what it takes to launch a company into hypergrowth. Their approach involves assisting these companies through an important transition: moving from a founder-led sales model to developing a robust go-to-market team and strategy.

Refinery provides ventures with their playbook which emphasizes market positioning to define and own a category, creating efficient customer acquisition strategies, developing strong operations including forecasting and budgeting, and moreover building an elite, high-performance culture with top recruiting capabilities.

Refinery's investment portfolio spans various sectors, such as healthcare, human capital, media, and marketing, backing innovators with unique insights into pressing problems.

Notably, they support businesses with the potential to significantly impact the world without requiring relocation to major hubs like Silicon Valley. Their philosophy is that breakthroughs can come from anywhere, even small towns like Wapakoneta, Ohio.

Furthermore, they showcase a commitment to the local ecosystem, as evidenced by their recognition during The Cincinnati Business Achievement Awards, which honors their support to the Lindner College of Business and local communities. Refinery believes in partnering with CEOs who possess a clear vision, strong values, and the ambition for hypergrowth, as well as technology that can transform experiences or industries.

They encourage founders who meet these criteria to get in touch and offer a platform, 'Fast Frontiers Podcast,' for insights into innovation in unexpected places.