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"J'Vanay Santos knew she did not want to go into accounting after getting a degree in the field, so she decided to take over a failing bodega on Albany Street in Schenectady instead.
Sales for that bodega – Fabbio Grocery – grew from $300 per day to about $3,100 per day in three years. She sold it in 2019 to her uncle and a partner.
Now, in another big career change, Santos is the CEO and co-founder of a software startup dedicated to maternal health care. The startup’s digital app has been designed with a particular focus on people from groups that are generally underserved – an issue that she learned more about as a bodega owner.
“I realized there were a lot of system issues at play, from food scarcity, blatant lack of resources, drug addiction – and that really fueled my passion for serving and creating solutions for marginalized and vulnerable populations,” Santos said.
MyLÚA Health is a digital maternal care platform focused on improving prenatal and postpartum health care as well as patient education.
The app works by using AI to analyze a mother’s health care information to assess her risk for pregnancy comorbidities, which physicians and other maternal care workers can see through their side of the app.
The app collects three types of patient data. That includes info inputted by the user, vitals gathered from a remote patient monitoring device like a blood pressure cuff or a weight scale, and data from electronic medical records.
MyLÚA Health is working on a pilot of the app with St. Peter’s Health Partners, which is owned by Michigan-based Trinity Health.
Product testing is being completed at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, and then a patient pilot will be completed there, as well as at Samaritan Hospital in Troy and an undecided third Trinity hospital.
“We do a successful pilot, it sets us up for rapid acceleration across their entire network, and Trinity health is the sixth-largest health system in the country,” said Michael Conward, chief technology officer and co-founder of MyLÚA Health.
The startup is continuing to make connections in the maternal health care industry, with the goal of launching commercially next spring, Santos said. The plans is to sell to health systems at first and then include health plans as part of the next business model.
Santos decided to get involved in the maternal health care industry after seeing how her sister was treated by health care providers during her pregnancy.
“Her journey was not easy,” Santos said. “I have seen five births, and hers was not correct. According to the other births, she didn't have as much medical intervention as she would have liked.”
As Santos was researching potential reasons behind this, she discovered a big discrepancy in the quality of maternal health care often experienced by Black women and other women of color.
Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Santos met Conward during the pandemic, and he decided to join the effort in tackling the health disparities.
“We want to be the new standard of care in the maternal health care industry," he said.
Conward has spent the last few years as the CTO of SelfArray, a startup founded by Clint Ballinger, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from RPI and decided to work at SelfArray instead of taking a job offer at Boeing.
There are 11 people working on the startup, including software developers. It has a long list of advisers, including experts who have worked for IBM Watson Health and the New York State Department of Health.
The startup is raising a seed round of $2.5 million and has won a couple of startup awards, including one from Cornell Tech for creating “positive societal impact” and $50,000 from the new Shovel Ready fund through Innovate 518."
"Dylan Telano, a senior at Skidmore College, has raised $2.5 million to continue developing a platform for Japanese comics that he started in high school.
The seed round of funding for VoyceMe was led by Torch Capital, with contributions by M13 Ventures, River Park Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and Red Sea Ventures.
That brings the startup’s total to about $4 million raised.
Telano, 21, says the latest round will allow him to build out the team – including hiring a CTO – as well as implement monetization models. There are currently eight employees and about 70 contractors.
“I'm slowly merging into classic CEO, where I'm not doing everything. I'm now focusing more on company vision, helping out where areas need help,” Telano said. “I have a lot of experience in the space now. I know what works. I have the data to even back it up as well.”
VoyceMe is an online platform and app where authors can share manga – Japanese-style comics – and webtoons, digital comics that originated in South Korea.
It’s an industry Telano says has exploded globally over the last few years.
Any creator can post work, but VoyceMe partners with certain authors to help produce work, similar to platforms like YouTube and Netflix. Creators can currently generate revenue through ads and sponsors, and readers can give money to their favorite creators. Telano said VoyceMe is also evolving how comics are read by adding sound, 3-D animation and live community engagement.
Telano said the platform has broken 1 million unique monthly users and has published more than 10,000 chapters. The average user engagement time per session is more than 20 minutes, and he hasn’t even added any of the planned retention features yet, he said.
“Our app has been growing at like 30-50% month-over-month,” Telano said.
In the first phase of monetization, he plans to “gamify” the app, meaning users can earn coins by completing certain tasks like reading a chapter or watching an ad.
“All the competitors use it in some way or form, so we're going to stick with that because it works.”
That will happen in the next three months, with a goal of generating $500,000 to $1 million next year, he said.
“Then from there, looking to basically jump that up to multiple millions in revenue,” Telano said. “Every one of our stories, a new chapter comes out per week, so that every single week, technically, we get more and more profitable because that content is really the key of monetization.”
Over the next year and a half, the plan is to focus on licensing to other platforms and companies to make products like movies, music, games, books and anything else.
Telano has learned from industry mentors that only about 50% of revenue for this type of business comes from original content. The other half comes from licensing.
“The core of it is you make good content, you can make money," Telano said. "So that's the goal that we're trying to follow – keep making sure our creative team is super strong.”
One of the platform’s original series has already been licensed for development into a card game. And the company is working on a hardcover book with plans for two others soon after.
Telano has primarily built the platform from his college dorm room, but he has upgraded this year to an off-campus apartment.
He is taking some entrepreneurship and business classes this year, and he says those teachers have been particularly supportive and flexible as he builds his company. To earn some credit for the work he’s been doing, he is completing an academic internship with his own company this year."
"Web Scribble Solutions has been around since 2002, but a new business model has led to fast growth reminiscent of a budding startup.
The company makes software that powers job boards for nonprofit trade associations. Its largest client is AARP.
Web Scribble landed a spot for the first time this year on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies, ranking at No. 1,350 for 481% growth over three years.
The company plans to grow revenue by four times in the next three years, according to CEO Alexey Gutin.
Since 2018, the company has been based on the entire second floor of the building at 216 River St. in Troy. It has nearly 50 employees, almost 30 of them local, with plans to double headcount in the next two years. Web Scribble wants to build out its executive team in the next six to 12 months with a head of finance, head of product and other positions. The company just hired a vice president of sales and marketing.
“Our preference is to keep growing in the Capital Region, so our goal is to keep looking for talent here ideally,” Gutin said.
Web Scribble was founded by twin brothers Alexey Gutin and Alexander Gutin, president. They are still sole owners of the company.
The brothers moved the company from their bedroom and into the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute business incubator in 2003 at age 19 while they were pursuing undergraduate degrees. They later spent some time in the Rensselaer Tech Park.
The company started out building software for e-commerce businesses, along with custom projects in other areas – including online job boards.
Revenue from the company paid for the Gutins' tuition with a little leftover. When they graduated about 10 years ago – Alexey with a doctorate in management and Alexander with a law degree – they had to decide whether to create something more sustainable or move on.
“We didn't want to get real jobs, and so we took that job board product that we had built, and was being sold very inexpensively, [and] started charging it on a subscription basis,” Alexey Gutin said.
They found a significant opportunity in 2015 when they started developing job boards for nonprofit associations.
“That's where we've seen tremendous growth over the last three, four years in particular,” he said.
The company started with some smaller organizations, and that led to some medium companies. By the end of 2017, the company signed its first three big clients: AARP, the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association and the American Psychological Association.
“It took awhile to break into that industry,” Gutin said. “It's very much an industry where you need some recognition to get the larger partners and the larger associations.”
He said the service can be used to help employers in those industries find the workers they need, often faster and cheaper. He used a client, the National Association of Social Workers, as an example.
“That's a profession where it doesn't pay that well, you need a master's degree and there's not enough of them graduating. And it's quite difficult to hire one,” he said. “So a lot of employers come to that career center to go find qualified talent they simply can't find anywhere else.”
Gutin said one of the top reasons people join trade associations is for career advancement. So when an association implements the Web Scribble service it can help gain and retain dues-paying members.
Associations often get the software for free, while employers looking for new hires pay a subscription or posting fee. Web Scribble then shares some of that revenue with the association. Along with that, Web Scribble runs recruitment sales and marketing on their behalf.
“So they generate non-dues revenue without having to do much work at all.”
From the article: "The CEO of Network Next said the startup had one real competitor. Now, it’s all alone.
“There's no technology like what we've got, and there's no direct competition,” said Glenn Fiedler.
With a fully remote company, Fiedler moved from Los Angeles to the Albany region in mid-2019 following encouragement from Velan Studios' Guha Bala and Karthik Bala. He bought a farmhouse in East Schodack.
The Network Next software is embedded into video games with the goal of improving internet performance.
The technology works by steering internet traffic from its origin directly to its proper destination. The goal is to reduce lag and loss of data between endpoints. It’s especially relevant for applications like esports games, in which too much lag could affect a player’s performance, as well as the emerging metaverse and extended-reality technologies.
“Whenever the internet doesn't give players the best experience, we step in and fix it,” he said.
Network Next’s one competitor – Subspace – announced earlier this year that it would be closing on May 13 “due to financial constraints.”
Subspace was founded in 2018 and announced itself publicly along with a fundraise of $26 million in 2020. The company at one point employed 150 to 160 people, according to a report by an industry expert.
Network Next was founded and raised nearly $10 million before Subspace existed, Fiedler said. It now has 10 employees, including three in upstate New York and others on the West Coast as well as in the Philippines, Vietnam and Australia.
Fiedler believes the way he has approached business at Network Next has made the difference.
There’s a very long sales cycle in the gaming industry. It could take two years of evaluations before a company becomes a paying customer, he said – a timeline not compatible with expectations of hyper growth in a short time.
"This is the thing in the venture capital space: It is really just a competition for who can raise the most money," he said.
“If you have a really high burn per month, and a long sales cycle – you might raise a lot of money now, but the next year, are you going to raise money if your revenues aren't growing because of a long sales cycle? You're not going to be able to raise more, so they died.”
Network Next produced nearly $1 million in revenue last year, and Fiedler expects to double or triple that by the end of 2022. It became profitable for the first time in the third quarter of this year, he said.
The startup now has more than 10 customers. Among them is Velan Studios in downtown Troy — Network Next worked on its Knockout City dodgeball game. Fiedler expects to generate more businesses from his booth at Game Developers Conference next year in San Francisco.
“I’ve got some really big customer announcements," he said.
Network Next raised money to get started, but Fiedler says he won't need to continue with that. His customers prepay for one to three years. Especially with the uncertain state of the economy, he would prefer to grow slowly and sustainably.
“There was a lot of cheap money flying around in 2021, especially for a lot of the blockchain stuff and, and honestly, some of the things that got funded were just embarrassing,” Fiedler said.
“We just put our heads down, focused on our product, and focused on profitability. That doesn't sound like incredibly sage advice, but I can tell you in 2021 that was a very contrarian position relative to most startups.”
And he plans to hire more people – preferably in the Capital Region, if possible – only as revenue grows. A couple of employees in upstate New York have bought their first homes while working at Network Next, he added.
"Even though we're super lean, we compensate really generously. Being a fully remote company lets us do that. We don't have any office costs."
"Shipology started because of the pandemic and dead plants.
Keri Wytrwal was running her e-commerce business WetPlants, which sold and shipped live plants for fish tanks, during the pandemic. But because she wasn't selling enough volume to qualify for a discounted rate from other carriers, she used the U.S Postal Service, and with Covid-related shipping slowdowns, her plants were ending up dead on arrival to customers.
So in an effort to solve similar shipping issues for other small businesses, Wytrwal and business partner Amanda Schermerhorn invested $1,000 to start Shipology in January 2021.
It's a third-party fulfillment company that provides small to medium-sized e-commerce businesses with order fulfillment, inventory management, discounted shipping rates, packing consulting and transportation. And coming this November thanks to recent growth: print shop services.
The goal of all of the combined offerings is to help clients scale up.
Wytrwal and Schermerhorn use the power of the combined volume of their small-business clients to get better shipping rates on the business' behalf with large carriers like DHL and FedEx — and avoid situations like dead plants.
"People don't know that they have access to these negotiated rates, or they were too small to get them. So we're like, 'OK we could do this, we can build a consortium, use our negotiated rates, we'll take care of working with the reps and doing all of that stuff for them. They can store their product with us, move it out of their spare bedroom,'" Wytrwal said.
Shipology offers clients services for warehousing, packing orders, shipping supplies special projects and, soon, printing services. Shipping is provided at cost.
The company has grown from 23 clients in December 2021 to 56 today, many of which are women-owned businesses and local entrepreneurs.
Wytrwal said Shipology has doubled revenue every six months, and it's possible they could hit $1 million in revenue next year. They also recently expanded their warehouse space at the Riverview Center in Menands.
Clients come from a wide range of industries, from food to beauty. One ships 110-pound bags of cacao. All but one client has been the result of referrals.
Alessandra Bange-Hall, owner of Piper Boutique in Saratoga Springs, uses Shipology's services to run the wholesale clothing business she started in 2021. She says it's allowed her to grow the business exponentially.
"The nice thing is I'm not packing or picking orders anymore, so I'm able to really take the time to focus on scaling my retail business and my wholesale business," Bange-Hall said.
If clients want their products shipped out a certain way, Wytrwal and Schermerhorn — currently Shipology's only two employees — will take the time to make that happen as it's built into their business model. It's also part of the reason they're starting the print shop arm of the business.
"What we're seeing is a lot of our customers are putting order inserts in ... maybe it's a coupon or it's a free download for a recipe — whatever it is to get customers back to their site and give them that added value," Wytrwal said. "Well, they're all going to like the VistaPrints and the GotPrints of the world and getting this done. And we're like, 'We can do this cheaper.'"
The co-owners have experience with large retailers, so clients also get access to Wytrwal's background in marketing and Schermerhorn's logistics knowledge. They're able to help clients set up their supply chain and give products UPCs, which are often required at larger warehouses but not Shipology's.
"When we bring on a new client, and they are like, 'I just got into Macy's, the routing guideline book is 109 pages long, I have absolutely no idea what to do.' It's like, don't worry, we've shipped there before, we know exactly what to do, bring your inventory to us," Schermerhorn said.
As Shipology's client base continues to grow, the co-founders are looking to see how the holiday shipping rush goes before they make more decisions about growth or hiring.
"We hit the ground running this year; basically last year was still our trial. I feel like we were still figuring it out, like getting this warehouse space, still getting set up. But now we have the space, we have the software this year, we have a forklift, four pallet jacks. We're legit now," Schermerhorn said."
The Pitch: Mohawk Machine Works designs machine to dry roofing, pavement: https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/i...air-sabre.html
From the article: "Mark Kowalczyk was watching a NASCAR race delayed by rain when he came up with an idea: a device that could clean and dry surfaces like the racetrack.
In 2013, the Mohawk Tomahawk prototype pavement dryer debuted, drying the pit lane at the NASCAR All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Since then, the uses for the device have expanded, and now Kowalczyk is seeking funding to bring the initial product run to market. The company is a finalist in FuzeHub's 2022 Commercialization Competition taking place in Buffalo Oct. 25-26.
The technology/product: Mohawk designs and manufactures a line of Air Sabre surface cleaning and drying machines that use high-velocity heated air to clean and dry outdoor surfaces in a two-stage process. The first stage removes all standing water/loose debris with high velocity pressurized air, and the second stage that uses heated air for drying. The system can attach to the front of vehicles, tow behind vehicles, or be walked behind. Its intended use is for highway crews, airports, flat roofing contractors and sealcoating/sports surface contractors.
Price: Quotes for products are available through the website.
Size of the market: Mohawk has conducted primary market research and has identified a specific list of target customers in the following industries (in order of priority and market size):
Competition: The largest competitor across all markets is status quo.
Competitive advantage: Mohawk’s competitive advantage is cost, efficiency and lower operational and maintenance costs. Mohawk’s products can also be scaled up and down in size, depending on the application.
There is one current product on the market for drying prior to painting lines. However, it is more than twice the price, limited in size and requires the entire power turbine to be returned to Europe once a year for rebuilding.
Business/technology it could disrupt: Introduction of Mohawk products into each of the targeted markets could [increase] productivity and change business models which curtail operations due to wet weather.
Founders and their background: Mark Kowalczyk is the company’s CEO and president. Kowalczyk received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with a focus on machine design from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and has been issued seven US patents. In previous roles, he designed, installed and serviced commercial drying equipment and led new product introduction projects with $25+ million in funding."
Troy vegan mozzarella stick startup scores distribution deal with US Foods: https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/i...icks-troy.html
From the article: "About a year after setting up a manufacturing facility in Troy, a local plant-based mozzarella stick company has its products in 30 restaurants and they've been picked up by distributor US Foods.
Imposter Food was started by Ryan Feiner two years ago. Feiner, who has a master's in petroleum geology and worked at the Honest Weight Food Co-op in college, said he developed the recipe for the vegan cheese — coconut oil is a primary ingredient — after noticing that none of the large plant-based companies were making mozzarella sticks.
"Vegan cheese has a pretty bad reputation, but rightfully so. And we actually have one that I think it's really good," he said.
The mozzarella sticks and shredded mozzarella products are currently being carried in 30 restaurants, including DeFazio's and Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany as well as Naughter's and The Ruck in Troy.
Now, with distribution and a contract with US Foods solidified, Feiner said the company has its hands full for the next six months as it learns to balance sales with production. Currently, the mozzarella sticks can be purchased by the pallet by distributors, and restaurants can purchase by the case. The company is manufacturing to meet demand as it comes in.
"We don't have the buying power or the whatever to compete with the giant company like Gaia cheese, pricewise," Feiner said. "So just the fact that there was no giant company putting out mozz sticks was like, 'OK, I've seen that before where a new market comes, and the market will bear your inefficiency for a while because it's new and you can set your price.' So that's where we're at."
Feinerindependently raised $120,000 to start the company and also has $50,000 in small business loans.
With the new manufacturing facility at 274 2nd St. running, Feiner said the company is capable of producing a pallet of mozzarella sticks per day. In the next few weeks, it plans to ramp up production.
The location also offers the company plenty of room to expand in the future."
From the article: "What do SpaceX, Google, and Albany High School have in common?
Tech startup Superluminal.
The Albany-based company draws on the experience its members gained working at major tech companies like SpaceX, Google and SoundCloud — along with their original shared experience on the robotics team at Albany High School — to combine software development and physical product development.
They're aiming to be a one-stop shop for software and hardware.
"That's probably where we're kind of most dangerous is where software and hardware come together," Augustus Rivera, partner, product and design lead, said.
Sebastian Sarbora, managing partner, said traditionally those two sides are separate teams that are subcontracted out by a company with an idea — meaning one team would develop the physical product, while another created the software. Then, the software and the hardware need to be integrated. At Superluminal, both are developed at the same time.
For example, Superluminal worked with Xenon-VR, a company developing a virtual reality headset used to conduct eye exams. The company wanted to shop out each aspect, and originally it approached Superluminal just looking for an electrical engineer. Instead, Superluminal offered the whole package.
"That really proved out our value pretty early on," Sarbora said. "They were looking to try to piecemeal find and manage this whole big team, all these different people from all these different places. And we already all know how to work together, we already know how to build these products, because we've been doing it for years at different companies and working together well."
Brothers Sarbora and Rivera, as well as Superluminal co-founder Aaron Perl, previously worked together at the Troy startup Ilium VR, which shut down in 2017. The team went their separate ways until three years later.
Since Superluminal's conception in 2020, the company has grown from three to six full-time employees who all work remotely.
The company is looking to grow even more in the future; Sarbora said they want to double their staffing in the next few years. They're also looking to develop their own product offerings instead of just catering to client requests.
"We can do things internally that provide a lot of leverage for us going forward with other clients, which is also fun, but kind of a differentiator, I think, for us, and maybe your sort of typical run-of-the-mill consulting firm," Rivera said.
The combined experience of the staff at larger Silicon Valley tech companies comes with scalable skills they can offer clients. Rivera said. For example, working on apps used by millions of people taught them to evaluate risk, a skill that carries over to the startup level.
In the future, Superluminal hopes to work with students at Albany High School, where five of the six employees attended high school together and competed in FIRST Robotics.
"We're kind of entered into a stage sort of more globally where great tech doesn't have to happen just in San Francisco. And so we want to be a part of bringing innovation and developing talent outside of that area," Rivera said. "The Capital Region is an area that's important to us, it's where we grew up and stuff. So it's really nice to be able to help foster that a little bit, in even a small way to help bring up the community."
The now-Troy-based company — which works with architecture and design firms to map spaces — maxed out its capacity for projects. And it was a wake up call for CEO V. Owen Bush.
"When we had that amount of volume, things started breaking down," he said.
So the company made some changes: It moved to Troy in January. It developed a new set of standards to abide by. It switched to new software and this summer began developing its own to streamline internal operations.
With these changes, Bush says the company is poised for growth. Its goal is to have three months in a row of revenue over $100,000, which would mean about 20 projects per month.
Scan2Plan creates models of buildings — "digital twins" — using a scanner that measures about a million points per sweep, accurate within a few millimeters. It's similar to how SONAR or RADAR work, Bush said. The points are then translated into different kinds of models that architects and engineers can use to design spaces, allowing them to focus on the design phase.
"Most architects didn't get into it because they love measuring rooms with a measuring tape," he said.
The company usually works with smaller architecture firms and has done projects with local companies, including SWBR, Phinney Design Group, Mosaic Associates Architects, SMRT Architects & Engineers, Architecture+, H2M Architects + Engineers, and RIDA Architecture. Projects usually have a turnaround of two to five weeks, which Bush said sets it apart from competitors.
"Essentially, we give them a chance to compete with the big firms because they're using the same high-tech tools that the big firms are using," Bush said.
Here's how they've positioned themselves to scale.
The move
The company's move to Troy was a significant step in its growth; it's now located in the Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence in downtown Troy. The draw to the new space was the improved infrastructure: Scan2Plan has access to fiber internet in the building, which is faster and capable of moving larger amounts of data than typical connections.
The software
Another key factor in positioning Scan2Plan for growth was building software to streamline project management. Instead of having project details scattered throughout various email threads, all of the progress would live in one "source of truth" for the whole team, Bush said, like a dashboard for each project.
The next step is building out custom software for sales and marketing, Bush said.
Scan2Plan also switched to Trimble, faster geospatial software that shortened project times.
The team
Scan2Plan was created out of Bush's other company, Hudson Virtual Tours, in 2018, but he said he's focusing more on Scan2Plan than ever before.
The move to Troy also attracted more local talent — much of the team is now local to the area, Bush said.
Right now, the team is flying out to handle projects in other parts of the country. Bush said he hopes to create a national network of scanners in the future to build a nationwide presence.
The goals
The company also wants to expand its services in the coming years. Bush said they hope to work with clients like Meta, Amazon and Google on quick-turnaround requests for a scan of any location in the United States, which goes along with the plan to expand into a national network of scanning services. To do that, they need to expand sales in the Capital Region.
"If we can unlock our sales funnel, and be able to reliably produce $150,000, $200,000, $250,000 a month in revenue, then we can start unlocking these other regions in the country," Bush said. "But we're not really pursuing that because we haven't been hitting those milestones yet."
Other future plans include municipal and civil services."
The company, which fulfills development contracts for other video game companies, purchased a 9,000-square-foot former firehouse in Glenville for $350,000 and is investing roughly $1.5 million for a full renovation.
The plan is to open the facility by early summer, which has a space for the Rocket Science studio, space for small video game companies and another space for gaming workforce development in partnership with Tech Valley Game Space. Brian Corrigan, Rocket Science co-founder, said they've also been working with nonprofit CanCode Communities to offer space as well as teachers and resources.
The project is being designed by Timothy Wade at Verdant Architecture and Erik Sandblom from SRA Engineering. Mark Cambria from Fusion Systems Engineering is doing mechanical, electrical and plumbing work. Adam Sipe from Sipe N Sons Services is the general contractor. Adirondack Trust Co. is providing financing.
The building will be about 7,200 square feet in total, with about half of that dedicated to Rocket Science's studio. Other features include:
- 360 square feet of conference space
- 745 square feet of production studio/classroom
- 1,250 square feet dedicated to a café lease space
Wade said the exterior will have corrugated metal and exposed brick with lighting at night. An outdoor patio will be open to tenants and café-goers.
The building will use an all-electric VRF heat pump system with energy recovery ventilation for heating and cooling and a Power over Ethernet lighting system. The building will be all electric with the exception of a back-up generator for outages and any minimal gas appliance usage by the café tenant.
The company is currently located on the second floor of a new building at 1385 Crescent Vischer Ferry Road in Halfmoon.
Rocket Science was founded by Corrigan and Tom Daniel, former head of business development for Unity Software, a publicly traded video game software development company (NYSE: U). Rocket Science is up to four clients, which cannot be named for privacy reasons.
"If we have 25 to 30, we'd have half the industry, kind of the big industry players. There's a small number of very big players," Corrigan said.
The company makes pieces of online multiplayer games, similar to the work that local companies Wolfjaw and Rushdown do.
Rocket Science has hired 15 people — about a hire a week — since it started this past summer, Corrigan said. According to planning board documents, the company plans to employ 40-50 people in Glenville. Rocket Science UK, the second arm of the company in Cardiff, Wales, just hired its third person.
The new studio will allow the workflow to return to its prepandemic ways: in the office a few days a week, Corrigan said.
"We have some security requirements for our gear, so if we have like a PlayStation [development] kit, they want it under lock and key and cameras and the whole thing," Corrigan said. "It's possible to do this all remotely and they've had to adapt too, but the easy route is to have it all in [the office]. We still think in order to be the best, we just want people to be able to have these kind of like good collisions."
Saratoga startup competes at pitch event that's helped boost some names in tech: https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/i...h-disrupt.html
From the article: "Helios Life Enterprises, a Saratoga Springs-based software startup, was selected to compete at a pitch competition whose alumni include companies like Dropbox, Fitbit and Mint.
The company was selected out of thousands of applicants as a participant for TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200 this year — a competition of the world’s top early-stage startups for equity-free prize money and the attention of media and investors worldwide. Helios didn't end up making the final stage but was recognized as an honoree.
The early technology being developed by Helios Life Enterprises can analyze and derive meaning from tonal shifts in speech.
"We had a blast sharing our story with so many smart founders, researchers and investors. There was an incredible amount of interest and excitement about the future of voice tone analytics,” Helios’ head of technology, Mike Martin, said in a statement.
TechCrunch is a news website focused on startups, venture funding and the business of tech. Though Helios did not make the finalist stage in October, as a Startup Battlefield 200 company it received master classes, pitch deck teardowns, curated receptions, access to investors and international media and more at the conference.
In the past, just 20 companies were selected to be part of the Startup Battlefield, but TechCrunch changed its format this year. For the first time, TechCrunch picked 200 companies to receive free exhibition space at the event and get a shot at the $100,000 prize.
Helios is basically in the business of acquiring and organizing huge amounts of audio-based data using its proprietary software platform, then selling that data to companies. That area of data sales – called alternative data – was valued at $2.7 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $143 billion by 2030.
In the case of the financial services industry, founder Sean Austin says the tech can be used to measure the confidence portrayed by CEOs during investor calls. The startup is working with major hedge fund clients as product customers right now, he told the Business Review in June.
The software now listens to every earnings call of all 4,400 U.S. public companies, he said. It has analyzed millions of hours of audio at this point."
"Brendan Laing took his senior capstone project at Union College and evolved it into his current startup.
After graduation with his bachelor's in biomedical engineering in 2019, he immediately began work on what would become IV Wedge, an IV stabilization accessory device.
"I continued to perform customer discovery interviews on nurses in the region and participated in NSF’s I-Corps Program at RPI, and discovered that my project had a different value from what it was originally intended for," he said.
Now, IV Wedge has 700 sterilized devices prepared for clinical study use, is running a clinical trial in the coming months, and is leading early-stage discussions with potential strategic partners.
The technology/product: The IV Wedge is an accessory that holds IV catheters and other cannula-bearing devices at a secure and fixed position. It stabilizes the catheter, supports the proper insertion angle and minimizes movement in the vein and kinking. The curved surface of the accessory device allows clinicians to control the angle which the IV is held during treatment. The IV Wedge comes in both pediatric and adult sizes and is made of silicone. They are flexible, disposable and sterile.
How the idea makes money: The IV Wedge has the potential to limit IV complications, improving clinical outcomes for patients leading to cost savings for providers. When complications such as infiltration, dislodgment or phlebitis occur, additional clinical procedures and medications drive up hospital costs. If complications are severe enough, an inpatient’s hospital length of stay may be increased, in turn increasing costs for providers.
Size of the market: The market incorporates almost every clinical field that requires the placement of a stable IV.
Total addressable market: $1.18 billion global catheter stabilization device market
Competition: Primary competitor is gauze. Clinicians often fold gauze up gauze and place it beneath IV catheters in order to prop them up at a certain angle before securing them.
Competitive Advantage:
- Eliminates bilateral movement
- Low cost
- Adaptable to any catheter
- Insertion angle control
- Adult and pediatric versions
Business/technology it could disrupt: The simplicity and low-cost of the IV Wedge allow it to be accessible in a range of clinical settings, including urban hospitals, rural practices and even patients’ homes.
Founder and his background: Founder and CEO Brendan Laing conceptualized the idea in 2019 and formed the company in 2021. Laing works in Albany Medical Center’s Biomedical Acceleration and Commercialization Center (BACC) as its engineer in residence, where he assists AMC clinicians and local medical device startup companies in developing their technology.
Advisers: Amy Johnson, BACC entrepreneur in residence; Stephanie Dosiek, BACC director
Capital raised: The company has raised close to $75,000 in non-dilutive funding. Laing has won two pitch competitions, BACC Academy Pitch Night 2019 ($15,000) and FuzeHub’s Commercialization Competition 2021 ($50,000). The rest has been raised through friends and family.
Capital sought:The company will be able to complete its next milestones with non-dilutive funding, but will to seek out further dilutive investments for their next round.
Ideal exit: While other options are being considered, IV Wedge’s current and most effective exit strategy is to license its technology to a major medical device manufacturer."
ENYA's Joe Richardson on local startup trends and slower deal flow: https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/i...-new-york.html
From the article: "The Eastern New York Angels fund has $600,000 to invest in new startups in the area. And it's had that capital ready for two years.
The problem: They're not finding the right fits.
"We've looked at a number of companies, but they weren't ready," Joe Richardson, managing partner of ENYA, said.
Richardson said in the last few years he's noticed some trends changing the current landscape of thestartup scene, including slowed deal flow in 2022, meaning the number of early-stage startups and entrepreneurs seeking capital early on has dipped this year. ENYA specifically looks to invest in promising early companies using pooled capital from angel investors.
"We're hoping that this will rebound in 2023," he said.
Here are some of Richardson's observations on the recurring patterns he's seeing from startups seeking funding.
Where's the business plan?
Of the businesses that are seeking investment, Richardson said many aren't writing business plans. Instead, they're presenting crowded PowerPoint slides.
Richardson said for investors — especially at ENYA — a business plan shows a level of preparedness.
"It's the process of thinking through what you're trying to develop, and how you're going to market, how you're going to sell it, and who's going to buy it. Who are your customers? And how do you differentiate from someone else that might be in the same space?" Richardson said.
That lack of preparation is at odds with another trend: Investors are looking for businesses that are farther along in their development — a big change from when ENYA formed over a decade ago.
"One of the first things I've observed recently is that in the seed and startup market, it's become a predominant stage for angels," he said. "And what I mean by that is that we're not investing in ideas that come out of a garage. Investing is really taking place more where there is a more formal product or service, that customer discovery has been done. And in many instances now, where there has been an indication of generating first-stage revenue."
The hottest startup concepts right now: medical devices and life sciences technology.
There's been a slowdown in startups focused on apps or software, Richardson said. Instead, there's been a rise in companies focused on medical devices, medicine, life sciences, and software applications in health and health care.
ENYA's made investments in this area. Glauconix, which is a specialty pharma research company that uses technology to reduce the cost of ophthalmic drug development, received a $600,000 seed investment from ENYA, won $100,000 in the NY Business Plan Competition, and was awarded $975,000 in SBIR grants from the federal government.
The company becameprofitable in 2019.
The area's startup scene needs more engagement from colleges as well as entrepreneurs in the community.
The drop in deal flow could be reflective of less engagement in startup activities in higher education. Richardson said there's less innovation coming out of thecolleges, and some are even raising the amount of prize money for pitch and business plan competitions to encourage more people to participate.
Another group he thinks could step up its engagement: successful local entrepreneurs.
"We've had a lot of exits [in the Capital Region]. And some folks created a lot of wealth. It's not the most robust region in the country, but we still have a lot of wealth here. And we, at times, lack participation in supporting the startup community," he said.
"I just feel that it's important that we get our entrepreneurs more engaged here and help them to develop successful businesses. And it's all about mentorship."
Why this California chip startup is moving into Albany NanoTech: https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/i...-research.html
From the article: "California-based startup Bleximo is entering into a research and development partnership at the Albany NanoTech Complex.
Bleximo was founded in 2017 and is a quantum computing system integration firm that specializes in chip design, chip fabrication and packaging technologies. It also can rapidly test chips using its cryogenic platform, among other capabilities.
Quantum computing is a next-generation approach to building computers. The goal is to make use of the principles of quantum mechanics to make processors that can solve difficult problems much faster than current computing technology.
Bleximo will expand its design, prototyping and marketing operations to the Albany NanoTech Complex while also establishing a research and development partnership with NY CREATES, the state-backed organization that manages the complex.
Bleximo CEO Dr. Alexei Marchenkov said the company decided to enter into a partnership with Albany NanoTech because it's the ideal place to be for further development of the company's quantum computing tech. The facility provides a one-stop shop for prototyping and collaborating with companies like AIM Photonics, which it already works with.
The NanoTech Complex includes facilities for researching and prototyping advanced semiconductor manufacturing and computing technologies. Companies such as IBM and Tokyo Electron have a research presence there.
"We are now concerned with the fact that we cannot make reliably this quantum processor of a large enough size, and this is because we use university clean rooms and shared user facilities and honestly tools that are 15-20 years old sometimes," Marchenkov said. "Just simply to have more reliable processors and to have a great yield, [Alban NanoTech] the natural place to do it at."
Though it's unclear how large Bleximo's New York team will be, Markenchov said he anticipates hiring local talent to manage the day-to-day research and development.
Markenchov said next steps include fundraising for the new equipment needed.
David Anderson, president of NY CREATES, said the addition of Bleximo is part of the work toward building the future of semiconductors.
“Quantum technologies are already enabling many of today’s most important innovations and advances in computing, semiconductors, microelectronics, and numerous other industries,” he said."
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