Launched in the heart of Rochester’s Downtown Innovation Zone in 2017, Luminate NY is the world’s largest startup accelerator competition for the optics, photonics and imaging industry. It also continues to attract attention to the Finger Lakes, long an epicenter of optics-related innovation. The competition’s second round, which opened in June 2018, drew more than 70 applicants from across the U.S. and New York, as well as from countries including Sweden, India, Canada, Australia, Russia, Israel, Portugal, China, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
What makes the competition so popular–beyond its $1 million grand prize–is the six months of mentoring, support and coaching finalists receive at Luminate’s incubator inside a renovated, mixed-use landmark in the city’s high-tech center. The 10 Cohort II finalists, selected last November, each received an initial $100,000 investment and began networking with the Finger Lakes OPI community in January of this year. They will compete at Luminate’s Demo Day in June for more than $2 million in follow-on funding and could even receive additional venture capital from outside investors. Winning companies are expected to establish operations in the Finger Lakes for at least 18 months, a transition eased by the 100 companies already supporting the region’s OPI supply chain.
