columbus-ohio
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Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams
Jeni Britton turned a spoonful of cayenne-spiked chocolate into a national premium ice cream business. Now Jeni's is testing whether the same craft, curiosity, and neighborhood warmth can survive grocery scale, frozen shipping, and franchising.
M/I Homes, Inc.
M/I Homes sells the house, helps personalize it, finances the buyer and stays on the hook after closing. Fifty years in, that unusually complete chain is being tested by the most stubborn problem in American housing: affordability.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) is a Columbus, Ohio-based global specialty apparel retailer that operates a family of brands - Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie kids, Hollister, Gilly Hicks, Social Tourist and the YPB activewear line - across roughly 840 company-operated stores, a franchise network and a digital business that accounts for close to half of revenue. Founded in 1892 as a Manhattan outfitter that supplied Theodore Roosevelt's safaris and counted Ernest Hemingway among its customers, the company spent the 2010s dismantling the exclusionary teen-mall identity it had built in the 1990s and 2000s. Under CEO Fran Horowitz, who took over in 2017, it split its two flagship brands into distinct demographic lanes - Abercrombie for millennials in their twenties and thirties, Hollister for teenagers - shrank store footprints, and rebuilt merchandising around a lean-inventory 'chase' model that reads early demand signals and reorders fast. The approach produced record fiscal 2025 net sales of $5.27 billion, a third straight year of double-digit operating margin, and one of the more complete reputational reversals in modern American retail.
Victoria's Secret & Co.
Victoria's Secret & Co. is a Columbus, Ohio-based specialty retailer of lingerie, intimates, beauty and fragrance, operating the Victoria's Secret, PINK and Victoria's Secret Beauty brands along with the digital-first label Adore Me. Spun off from L Brands as an independent NYSE-listed company (VSCO) in 2021, it sells bras, panties, sleepwear, activewear, body care and fragrance through roughly 1,300 retail stores, a global network of partner-operated locations and a large e-commerce operation. With about $6.55 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue and around 31,000 employees, the company is pursuing a turnaround that pairs a revived Victoria's Secret Fashion Show with a broader, more inclusive brand message.
Physna
Physna is a geometric deep-learning company that does for 3D models and physical objects what Google did for text: it lets machines actually understand shape. Its proprietary technology codifies the geometry of any 3D model into searchable, comparable data, powering both an enterprise platform used by Fortune 500 manufacturers and government agencies, and Thangs, a free public 3D search engine and creator community that has grown to tens of millions of monthly users. Founded in 2015 in Ohio and backed by Sequoia, Tiger Global, GV and Drive Capital with more than $86M raised, Physna turns the physical world into something a computer can search, match and protect.