After years of fragmented efforts across Nebraska’s startup ecosystem, a new nonprofit is stepping in to help founders navigate the landscape, connect with resources and accelerate ideas into action.
Open Range, launched in direct response to the Silicon Prairie Rising report, aims to serve as the organizing backbone that the report called for: a central hub to coordinate the state’s growing but disconnected innovation community.
Built with a startup mindset and focused squarely on founders, Open Range is designed to amplify existing efforts, activate solutions to ecosystem gaps and improve access to critical resources in Omaha, Lincoln and beyond. The organization plans to stay intentionally lean, investing in partnerships and collaboration rather than building out a large internal team.
“Open Range really exists to grow the Omaha and Lincoln startup ecosystem and support local founders and builders that are shaping what’s next,” said Laurel Oetken, Open Range’s first vice president of operations and the nonprofit’s only full-time employee.
The organization is backed by a coalition of startup advocates and civic leaders who contributed to the Silicon Prairie Rising strategy. Interim CEO Joe Petsick, a longtime entrepreneur and ecosystem leader, is guiding Open Range through its early stages. Former Luminarium CEO Silva Raker is supporting the organization in a consulting capacity and Stephen Osberg of PGSA is involved in a strategic role. The Nebraska Startup Academy, led by Charlie Cuddy, is a key partner.
Rather than building a large internal team, Open Range plans to invest directly in existing ecosystem builders. The model is designed to avoid duplication, increase visibility of existing resources and coordinate efforts between stakeholders.
“We’re not here to own the ecosystem. We’re here to open it, and we’re here to continue to support growth opportunities that exist in the community,” Oetken said. “Startups have the ability to change lives and to change the way that we think about community growth and wealth generation.”
The organization’s structure mirrors the environment it’s trying to support. Open Range will fill roles based on traction, redeploy budget into the community and adapt its operations based on outcomes.
“We’ve really tried to structure Open Range like we would structure a startup,” Petsick said. “We expect to fail along the way, just like a startup, and then we’re going to adjust from what we learn from those failures.”
Open Range is not a direct provider of programs or capital. Instead, it functions as a central connector where founders, creatives, funders and institutions can align efforts and reduce friction.
“If we do our job right, this organization will own no programming,” said Petsick. “Our job is to find the right people that are in the best position to help bring the solution to life.”
The group’s work is focused on three strategic pillars: amplify, activate and access. Amplify involves elevating existing initiatives and stories. Activate means identifying and addressing gaps in the ecosystem. Access focuses on making resources more visible and widely available.
“Together, we’re trying to make it easier for more people to start, sustain and scale their ventures and helping them to navigate what exists and also what doesn’t,” Oetken said.
That includes building bridges between founders and mentors, funders and institutions — connections that can be hard to locate in a decentralized ecosystem.
“I think the power of Open Range … is its ability to pull people together and really do what it needs to do, coordination,” Osberg said.
Osberg described Open Range’s role as a “front door” for founders, making it easier to discover support systems, connect with mentors and access capital. He said the group’s visibility and network across creative, startup and technology sectors could position it as a “center of gravity” in the ecosystem.
Cuddy said Open Range’s neutrality and openness make it especially valuable to the statewide innovation effort.
“Open Range is exciting because it’s not about ownership, it’s about openness,” he said. “The organization isn’t trying to dominate or control the ecosystem, it’s here to unlock it.”
Cuddy said Open Range is a natural extension of the Nebraska Startup Academy’s mission to empower founders, strengthen the startup pipeline and create a more connected, resilient entrepreneurial ecosystem across the state.
Open Range is currently seeking a physical office. It also plans to form an advisory board with strong founder representation.
Oetken, who previously worked at Flywheel, Tech Nebraska and the Greater Omaha Chamber, said Open Range represents the chance to apply years of firsthand experience with founders to a new kind of infrastructure.
“We really want to see a vibrant innovation economy, where startups, businesses, creators, are all supported, celebrated and feel like they have the ability to scale,” she said. “We’re really focused on giving founders the support that they need to start here and to stay here long term and grow their businesses.”
More announcements about Open Range and partnerships are expected later this summer. You can see Open Range’s website here: https://openrange.org/