By Owen Pfeiffer
BUFFALO — The state’s annual gathering of startup founders, manufacturers, university researchers and investors opens Tuesday at the Buffalo Convention Center, where nine young companies are set to compete for $430,000 in funding and state economic development officials are scheduled to lay out their technology priorities.
The two-day New York State Innovation Summit is organized by FuzeHub, the nonprofit that serves as the statewide center of the New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership, with Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation, known as NYSTAR. Organizers say it draws more than 550 participants and 50 exhibitors a year.
Who is speaking
Empire State Development President and CEO Hope Knight is scheduled to give the opening keynote Tuesday morning, followed by a NYSTAR update from Executive Director Ben Verschueren, according to the published agenda. GE Vernova research operations director Marco Aimi is also slated to deliver a keynote, according to FuzeHub’s announcement.
Headline panels cover quantum computing, with scientists from Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University, and how venture capital is shaping “reindustrialization,” hosted by New York Ventures, the state’s early-stage venture fund. Sen. April Baskin, the Buffalo Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Economic Development and Small Business, is scheduled to speak before the competition awards.
Western New York institutions are on the program. A University at Buffalo economic development official is among the sponsor speakers, and a UB innovation director is one of the competition’s four judges, along with representatives of CenterState CEO, Launch NY and the Phillips Lytle law firm, according to the summit website.
The competition
The Commercialization Competition, funded through FuzeHub’s Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund, will award a $150,000 grand prize, a $110,000 runner-up prize and two $85,000 awards. The finalists listed on the competition page include Lucent EMS Solutions, CarbonCLAIR, SUPERClean Glass, Axenica Bioscience, ProViZiGen, Eggstraordinary, Resolvia Biosciences, CaroRhythm and PSSP Technologies.
Last year’s grand award went to REEgen Inc. “Winning first place was a great honor and a strong validation of our team’s hard work and innovation,” the company said in a testimonial posted on the summit website.
The pitch for Buffalo
FuzeHub’s executive director, Elena Garuc, tied the location to the city’s history. “FuzeHub is proud to bring the New York State Innovation Summit to Buffalo, a historic hotbed of innovation dating back to the opening of the Erie Canal,” she said in the announcement. “It’s the right city for us to gather the Empire State’s innovation leaders to look forward to what’s next and shape the vision for what’s possible in this great state.”
Mr. Verschueren said the event serves a statewide goal. “Year after year, this Summit brings together brilliant innovators and inspiring leaders in pursuit of a common goal: to advance New York innovations that have potential to improve lives and livelihoods and strengthen our state’s economy,” he said.
The summit also includes founder workshops run with New York Ventures and Launch NY on pitching, metrics investors use for seed and Series A rounds and assembling financing, plus a Launch NY session matching startups with investors.
The competition winners are expected to be announced during the summit, which runs through Wednesday.
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