Plug and Play, a global business that’s nurtured companies like Google, Paypal and Dropbox, is coming to Cleveland.

Its local partners say that it will help the region become a national center for innovation in biotechnology and medicine, bringing with it more entrepreneurial firms, bigger corporate players, and more knowledge-sector jobs.

Founding partners include Cleveland Clinic and Jumpstart Inc., which will underwrite Plug and Play’s creation of a business “accelerator” in about 10,000 square feet of downtown Cleveland’s Global Center for Health Innovation.

The official announcement of the three-year deal is set for Monday. Peter O’Neill, executive director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, called it a “really, really big deal in our world.”

“We can declare ourselves the medical capital all day long, but the external validation means everything,” he  said.

Cleveland ranked third among Midwest cities in patents per capita between 2008 and 2012, according to a Brookings Institution report.

Cleveland is also mentioned in a 2014 report as one among dozens of cities and metropolitan areas with a broad mix of entrepreneurs and educational institutions, start-ups and schools, mixed-use development and medical innovation.

Local leaders hope the Plug and Play deal will help Cleveland stand out in the crowd.

“There are some very unique things about Plug and Play,” said Ray Leach, the founding CEO of Jumpstart, a Cleveland-based nonprofit venture-development organization.

Plug and Play is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif, and operates in 24 countries. It has built its reputation around matching innovative startups and smaller firms with potential investors or buyers – generally, larger corporations that want to purchase products or expertise.

The startups get free space and advice, valued at anything from $25,000 to $500,000 per company.

The investors and buyers pay for the privilege of rubbing elbows with the startups, and sitting in on their business pitches. Plug and Play says it works with about 200 corporate partners and 200 venture capitalists.

Cleveland will become Plug and Play’s first U.S. facility focused on health and medical technology. Leach said it should raise the region’s profile among both entrepreneurs and established firms.

Every six months starting next year, he said, it would evaluate hundreds of smaller firms and select 10 to 20 of them to enter the accelerator.

They would receive months worth of assistance. After about 90 days, they would make brief presentations to potential investors or customers. They would not be forced to sell equity in their firms in order to participate, however. Leach said the greater degree of control could help attract some more established companies, as well as startups.

After the acceleration process, some of the newer firms would move elsewhere as they grow. But, O’Neill said, “we hope some of them will stay.”

Meanwhile, venture capitalists and larger corporations that now travel to California to find promising investments in medical technology or biotechnology would be coming to Cleveland.

Leach said partnership talks started several months ago with Lev Gonick, CEO and co-founder of DigitalC, and Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish. He said his own initial skepticism was cured simply by sitting in the lobby of Plug and Play’s California facility and watching the buzz of conversations among entrepreneurs, experts, and investors.

O’Neill said the Clinic chose to be a local partner partly because its leadership wanted to get the earliest possible look at disruptive changes in medical care, and partly because the effort would create a more vibrant regional ecosystem for innovation.

“It’s a rising tide lifts all ships kind of deal,” he said.

He added that the Clinic’s founding-partner status would not give it exclusive access to any of the firms involved.

Dr. Brian Donley, the Clinic’s chief of staff, said the Clinic was happy to share the intellectual wealth. “Bringing this activity to our region will help continue the growth of our healthcare-based economy, leading to new treatments for our patients and patients around the world,” he said.

This article originally appeared on cleveland.com.