Sheldon Ohringer, Co-Founder of Cocoon Growth, Partner in Mango Seed Investments, and Mid-Iowa Health Foundation Board Member
Sheldon joined Mid-Iowa Health Foundation’s Board of Directors in 2024 and serves on the Investment Committee.
Sheldon is the Co-Founder of Cocoon Growth and Co-Creator of How to Buy your 1st Business. Sheldon is also a Partner in Mango Seed Investments, an early-stage Iowa-based seed fund and has personally invested in over private 150 companies. With more than 40 years’ experience in business, Sheldon is best known as a Telecommunication Entrepreneur and veteran executive of both the telecommunications and internet services industry. Sheldon co-founded, served as CEO, and successfully bought and sold Caleris, Inc., an outsourced technology and customer services helpdesk company, in 2014. In 2008, Caleris was recognized by the TAI as Top Growth Company. Sheldon was honored as CEO of the Year at the TAI Prometheus Awards for 2009. The company was acquired by Iowa Network Services on Feb. 1, 2014. Prior, he was the President and CEO of FirstWorld Communication where he rebuilt this company from a $1 million per year CLEC to an Internet Infrastructure and data center company, with $100 million run rate revenue. He led its highly successful IPO with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
He is active in the Iowa entrepreneurial community, with involvement with the Plains Angels, Global Insurance Accelerator, Science Center of Iowa, and the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines.
He is a past treasurer of the board of Unitypoint Central Iowa. Sheldon was a member and was co-exec management committee member for CTEK Angels, a Colorado angel club that formed in 2000 and ran thru 2008. He is founding member of the ownership group that owned the Iowa Energy Basketball team. This investment was sold to a group led by members of the Memphis Grizzlies in May 2014. Sheldon is a past Commissioner of the Governor of Colorado Commission for Science and Technology (1999-2006) and a past Institute board member of the Institute for Tomorrows Workforce in Iowa.
Sheldon began his career in 1980 at Northwestern Bell in a Management Training Program after graduating from the University of Iowa in 1979 with a BBA in Marketing and Management.
