the latest news about Business Incubators and Accelerators from across New York State
April 2021 NYS Incubator Report
PLEASE HELP US WELCOME BIANYS' NEWEST MEMBERS!!!
From the Desk of our Exec Director
We are very excited about how things are shaping up this year! Spring is here, the days are getting longer, folks are getting vaccinated and the innovation economy is heating up as evidenced by some of the recent financings listed at the bottom of this newsletter. We are launching the first cohort in our member-wide International Softlandings program this summer, and we are in the midst of planning our IN-PERSON Annual Meeting this December 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in New York City!

I do not think it is any secret of how proud I am of our members and the amazing work they do every day, and that is why I get extremely excited when we are able to welcome top-notch incubators into our membership. I hope you will all give a warm welcome to our newest members: JLabs NYC (Johnson and Johnson Innovation), Columbia University's Lab to Market Accelerator Network, and the Fordham Foundry! I know we all will find ways to collaborate on their amazing programs.

In Solidarity,

Marc Alessi
Executive Director
BIANYS
JLabs NYC joins BIANYS

BIANYS is pleased to welcome JLabs NYC as a supporting member. Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS (JLABS) is a global network of open innovation ecosystems, enabling and empowering innovators across a broad healthcare spectrum including pharmaceutical, medical device, consumer and health tech sectors to create and accelerate the delivery of life-saving, life-enhancing health and wellness solutions to patients around the world. JLABS achieves this by providing the optimal environment for emerging companies to catalyze growth and optimize their research and development by opening them to vital industry connections, delivering entrepreneurial programs and providing a capital-efficient, flexible platform where they can transform the scientific discoveries of today into the breakthrough healthcare solutions of tomorrow.



Columbia University's Lab-to-Market Accelerator Network joins BIANYS

BIANYS is pleased to welcome Columbia University's Lab to Market Accelerator Network into its membership as a supporting member. The Network is an extensive set of programs, 11 in total that provide programming specific to a number of various industry sectors in the startup community, here is a listing of each program:
Fordham Foundry joins BIANYS

BIANYS is pleased to welcome the Fordham Foundry into its membership. The Foundry encompasses a number of entrepreneurial programs offered through the university and its entrepreneurial community to assist startups and students interested in the startup community. Pitch competitions, mentorship programs, and angel investment are just the beginning of the services available.
NEWS AND EVENTS
Imperium3 New York secures a total of $85M in funding to build out their Gigafactory in Endicott, NY, producing environmentally friendly lithium-ion batteries.

iM3NY has an exclusive North American technology license agreement with C4V, founded by Binghamton University professor Shailesh Upreti, who has been receiving continued mentorship from Distinguished professor, Nobel laureate, and lithium-ion battery inventor Stan Whittingham. iM3NY and te C4V get extensive support from the infrastructure at Binghamton University including the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator and Clean Energy Incubator. Funding came from Riverstone Credit Partners, Riverstone Holdings LLC, and Magnis Energy.
Over the next year, iM3NY will seek to employ about 150 people within the manufacturing operation and its headquarters located adjacent to the factory. The company’s substantial growth plans include building out 32 GWh of capacity over eight years, which will create direct employment opportunities for as many as 2,500 people.
 
The Center for Agricultural Development & Entrepreneurship and ripe.io
Launch ripeCommunity,
an Online Farm to Institution Matchmaking Platform
to Get Local Food Back on the Menu in New York


The Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship (CADE), in partnership with ripe.io, announces the launch of ripeCommunity, an online directory and matchmaking site designed to connect farms and food businesses with local institutions, like K-12 schools, hospitals and universities, as well as local markets and consumers.



Artificial Intelligence platform wins UB entrepreneurship competition
More than $60K in startup funding and services awarded

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Opollo Technologies, a fintech health care AI startup, took first place April 9 in the University at Buffalo’s Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition (Panasci TEC).
Ryan Young, MD/MBA ’21, and Anders Rosén, MBA ’21, will receive $25,000 in startup capital and in-kind services valued at $27,000 for their company, Opollo Technologies LLC.
RIT incubator graduate Council Rock gets $7 million boost led by Golisano-founded investment firm

Council Rock, a graduate company from Rochester Institute of Technology’s Venture Creations business incubator, has received $7 million Series A funding, led by Grand Oaks Capital, the investment firm founded by businessman and philanthropist B. Thomas Golisano.
Motorola Solutions, and other private investors, also participated in the investment round.

#SouthSummit2021
STARTUP COMPETITION

This is your last chance to access all the benefits #SouthSummit2021 Startup Competition offers. If you have a disruptive project in any industry and any stage and you are seeking quality networking and global visibility or know someone who is South Summit is your place.

Former finalists have accomplished so much: $5.3 Billion raised, a 95% of survival rate, 41 exits... 
Webinar: Brexit Policy Explainer & Implications for NYS Exporters 
Wednesday, April 28, 2021, 10:00 – 11:15 a.m. 
Join us for a webinar to learn more about the implications of Brexit on trade activities in Europe. Presented by Global NY’s European representative, Barbara Grunewald, the event will cover topics including:  
  • A contextual summary of the European Union, including the European Economic Area and The European Free Trade Area.  
  • An overview of the Brexit timeline and transitionary period, and how the negotiations unfolded.  
  • Exploring the new UK-EU political and economic relationship moving forward.  
  • Evaluating the implications of the new trade deal and the ramifications for prospective NYS exporters. 
Quadrant Biosciences COVID Testing Virtual Presentation, Thursday, April 29, 2021, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. EST
Richard Uhlig, Quadrant Biosciences and Frank Middleton, PhD, SUNY Upstate Medical University

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Quadrant Biosciences is a STARTUP NY company housed within SUNY Upstate and CNY Biotech Accelerator and has developed a “spin in” industry + academia collaborative program. Richard Uhlig and Dr. Frank Middleton will discuss their efforts to bring Quadrants’ saliva-based diagnostic technology to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic to the market – and now utilized across the globe – as Quadrant Biosciences’ sensitive test was provided FDA Emergency Use Authorization.
Incubator Works recognized in Ceramics Journal
UPCOMING EVENTS
April 29 | Strategic Partnerships between Early-Stage Ventures and Industry

This interactive panel brings together business development executives from large pharma and biotech, legal experts in term sheet negotiations, and early-stage founders with successful strategic partnership agreements with industry to discuss their views on the structure of the term sheet in depth.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
  • The Urban Future Prize Competition is back for the 5th year with $50K cash prizes to two startups, and for the first time ever, an additional $50K cash prize to a New York State climate justice organization. Through the generous support of The New York Community Trust, Carrier, MUFG Union Bank, and NYSERDA,, we’re offering prize winnings totaling $160K. 



RECENT FUNDINGS
Vesta Healthcare, a New York City-based digital health platform for clinical providers, raised $65 million in growth funding led by Deerfield Management Company, Oak HC/FT, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Lux Capital, Generator Ventures, Nationwide, CareCentrix and others.

Volastra Therapeutics, a NYC-based biotech developing novel therapies for the prevention and treatment of metastatic cancer, extended its original seed round to a total of $44 million. New investors Vida Ventures and Catalio Capital Management joined a syndicate that includes Polaris Partners, Droia Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners and Quark Venture.

NYC’s Tend, a tech heavy dental studio launched by the former CEO of Smile Direct Club, has raised $125 million in a Series C funding. Addition led the round and was joined by GV (Google Ventures), Juxtapose, Redpoint and Zigg Capital. Tend is attempting to reinvent the dental industry by opening dental studios that prioritize patient comfort. (www.hellotend.com) (PR Newswire)

NYC’s Orum, a platform that speeds money transfers, has raised $21 million in a Series A funding. Bain Capital led the round with participation from Inspired Capital, Homebrew, Acrew, NYC's Primary Venture Partners, Clocktower, NYC’s Box Group, Amex Ventures and SVB Capital. Orum’s platform, which went live in September 2020, is processing tens of millions of dollars in transactions a month. (www.orum.io) (Forbes)

NYC’s DoControl, an automated data access controls platform, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding. RTP Global led the round with participation from StageOne Ventures, Cardumen Capital and CrowdStrike's Falcon Fund. The company’s platform provides data access monitoring for SaaS applications such as Google Drive, Box, Microsoft OneDrive, Salesforce and Slack. (www.docontrol.io) (PR Newswire)

Brooklyn’s Pico, a CRM and monetization platform for creators, has raised $6.5 million in a funding round. Bullpen Capital led the round and was joined by Precursor Ventures, Stripe, BloombergBeta and Village Global. Pico’s platform provides a variety of tools such as landing pages, pop-ups to collect email addresses, subscription paywalls, tiered membership programs, donations and video revenue tools. (www.trypico.com) (TechCrunch)

NYC’s Slice, an ordering platform for independent pizzerias, has raised $40 million in a Series D funding. The round was led by Cross Creek, with participation from KKR, GGV Capital, NYC’s Primary Venture Partners and Twitter’s former CEO Dick Costolo. Slice has built a mobile app and website for ordering from local pizzeria and also provides tools so they can build their own websites and run marketing campaigns. (www.slicelife.com) (TechCrunch)

NYC’s Veriff, an identity verification startup, has raised $69 million in a Series B financing. IVP and Accel led the round. Veriff’s video-first, AI-powered identity verification platform combines with data cross-checks to detect signs of identity fraud. Veriff is one the Estonian startups in NYC. (www.veriff.com) (Biometric Update)

NYC’s Vericred, an API platform exchange for health insurance and benefits companies, has raised $23 million in a Series B funding. Aquiline Technology Growth led and was joined by Echo Health Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Guardian Strategic Ventures, Riverside Acceleration Capital, FCA Venture Partners and First Health Capital Partners. Vericred’s platform empowers “quote to card” functionality for more than 300 insurance companies. (www.vericred.com) (HIT Consultant)

NYC’s Co-Star Astrology, a hyper-personalized astrology app, has raised $15 million in a Series A funding. Spark Capital led the round and was joined by Maveron and NYC’s Female Founders Fund. Co-Star’s app has been downloaded by a quarter of all women ages 18 to 25 in the U.S. (www.costarastrology.com) (Yahoo News)


DepYmed, Inc., has announced a new financing led by Topspin Fund, L.P. and additional investors for a total of $8.3 million.
Led by former Center for Biotech BioEntrepreneur-in-Residence Andreas Grill, DepYmed is a pharmaceutical company focused on a novel phosphatase inhibition technology platform with potential therapeutic application across multiple different disease including Rett Syndrome, Wilson Disease and Breast Cancer.
Full details of the financing can be found within DepYmed’s news release.

NYC’s SecurityScorecard, a cybersecurity ratings company, has raised $180 million in a Series E funding. Investors included Silver Lake Waterman, T. Rowe Price Associates, Fitch Ventures, Evolution Equity Partners, Accomplice, Riverwood Capital, Intel Capital, NGP Capital, AXA Venture Partners, GV (Google Ventures) and NYC’s Boldstart Ventures. The company’s platform monitors risks by identifying possible vulnerabilities from a hacker’s perspective, covering areas such as network, endpoints, DNS health and IP reputation. (www.securityscorecard.com) (TechCrunch)

NYC’s ActionIQ, a customer data platform, has raised an additional $68 million as part of its Series C funding, bringing the total raised in the round to $100 million. The additional funding was provided by existing investors led by March Capital Partners. ActionIQ’s platform helps companies such as Morgan Stanley, The Hartford, Albertsons, JCPenney and GoPro, use their customer data to deliver personalized experiences. (www.actioniq.com) (TechCrunch)

NYC’s Apploi, a recruiting and onboarding platform for the healthcare industry, has raised $8 million in a Series B funding. Underscore VC led the round and was joined by investors including Defy Partners. The company’s platform provides recruiting, onboarding and credentialing for high-volume health care hires, particularly nurses. (www.apploi.com) (Crunchbase News)

NYC’s Squarespace, a website building platform, has raised $300 million in a venture funding round that valued the company at $10 billion. Investors included Dragoneer, NYC’s Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, T. Rowe Price Associates, Spruce House, Accel and General Atlantic. Squarespace recently filed confidentiality to go public via a direct listing or initial public offering. (www.squarespace.com) (TechCrunch)

NYC’s Socure, an identity verification and fraud prevention platform, has raised $100 million in a Series D funding. Accel led the round and was joined by Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Flint Capital, Citi Ventures, WellsFargo Strategic Capital, Synchrony, Sorenson and NYC’s Two Sigma Ventures. Socure’s platform reduces online fraud by using AI to analyze online and offline data to validate a consumer’s identity. (www.socure.com) (BusinessWire)

NYC’s Hugging Face, developer of a natural language chatbot, has raised $15 million in a Series B financing. Addition led the round and was joined by Lux Capital, A.Capital and Betaworks. Hugging Face is one of the many French startups in NYC. (www.huggingface.co) (TechCrunch)

NYC’s Fetcher, a recruiting automation platform focused on diversity, has raised $6.5 million in a Series A funding. G20 Ventures led the round and was joined by KFund, Accomplice and Slow Ventures. Fetcher’s algorithms look for talent that might match an employer's job requirements aggregating candidate information from across the web. (www.fetcher.ai) (VentureBeat)

NYC’s Sprinklr, a customer experiences platform, has filed confidentially for an IPO. Sprinklr has raised a total of $578 million from investors including Intel Capital, Battery Ventures, NYC’s Sixth Street Capital and Iconiq Capital. (www.sprinklr.com) (Barron’s)

NYC’s Compass raised $450 million in its initial public offering last week valuing the company at $7 billion. Compass’ shares began trading last Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol COMP. (www.compass.com) (Bloomberg)

NYC’s Komodo Health, a healthcare 'map maker', has raised $220 million in a Series E funding. NYC’s Tiger Global Management led the round with participation by Casdin Capital, ICONIQ Growth, Andreessen Horowitz and SVB Capital. The company’s platform compiles de-identified healthcare data from 325 million individual patients to offer a real-time view into patient healthcare journeys. (www.komodohealth.com) (Fierce Healthcare)

NYC’s Team Whistle, a sports media startup, is being acquired by Eleven Sports, a European sports media platform. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Team Whistle had previously raised $141 million from investors including Touchdown Ventures, WndrCo, Liberty Media, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Emil Capital Partners, Aser Media, Manatt Venture Fund, NBC Sports Ventures and Beringea. (www.teamwhistle.com) (www.elevensports.com) (Variety)

NYC’s Cyware, a cybersecurity platform, has raised $30 million in a Series B funding. Advent International and Ten Eleven Ventures co-led the round and were joined by Prelude Fund, Emerald Development Managers, Great Road Holdings and Zscaler. The company’s Virtual Cyber Fusion platform provides organizations with the ability to share threat intelligence and orchestrate threat responses. (www.cyware.com) (TechCrunch)

NYC’s Lolli, a platform that rewards shoppers with bitcoin, has raised $5 million in a seed funding round. Investors included Seven Seven Six, Night Media, Serena William’s Serena Ventures and various angel investors. Lolli rewards online shoppers with bitcoin when they shop at over 1,000 retailers including Kroger, Microsoft and Booking.com. (www.lolli.com) (The Block Crypto)

NYC’s Lev, a commercial real estate financing platform, has raised $10 million in a seed funding. NFX led the round and was joined by Canaan Partners and JLL Spark. The company's platform handled over $100 million in transactions over the last 12 months and expects to increase its volume ten fold this year (www.levcapital.com) (Real Estate Weekly)

NYC’s Ro (formerly Roman), a direct-to-consumer pharmacy and wellness company, has raised $500 million in a Series D funding at a $5 billion valuation. Investors included General Catalyst, FirstMark Capital, TQ Ventures, SignalFire, Torch, NYC’s BoxGroup, Altimeter, Baupost, Dragoneer, Shawspring and Radcliff. Ro now treats 20 conditions, including sexual health, weight loss, dermatology and allergies. (www.ro.co) (Forbes)

Investment in NYC tech companies is soaring. So far this year, NYC startups have received $7.6 billion in seed through late-stage funding with 25 companies having raised rounds of at least $100 million. If investment continues at this pace, the NYC tech industry will be on track for a record-setting year. (Crunchbase News)

NYC’s Fireblocks, a digital asset custodian, has raised $133 million in a Series C funding. Investors included Paradigm, Galaxy Digital, Swisscom Ventures, Tenaya Capital, Cyberstarts Ventures, The Bank of New York Mellon and SVB Capital. The company’s platform provides secure infrastructure for moving, storing and issuing digital assets. (www.fireblocks.com) (TechCrunch)

NYC venture capital fund BBG Ventures has raised $50 million for a new fund, its third. BBG Ventures invests in seed rounds of startups which have at least one woman on the management team. Among the NYC tech companies backed by the firm are The Wing, Zola, Lola and Spring Health. (www.bbgventures.com) (TechCrunch)

NYC’s Trullion (formerly SMRT), a workflow automation platform focused on lease accounting, has raised $3.5 million in a seed funding round. NYC’s Greycroft and Aleph co-led the round and were joined by Verissimo Ventures. The company’s platform takes unstructured data such as PDFs and translates them into real-time financial reports. (www.trullion.com) (Accounting Today)











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