Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul with 43North First Prize Winner Strayos

NYS Business Competitions are Accelerating Entrepreneurship

In business, and elsewhere, ideas are currency. In New York State, ideas create currency – in prize money of up to $1 million through ESD's business accelerator competitions, which support entrepreneurs and startups launching new companies across several Upstate regions. These competitions include diverse, cutting edge industries, such as agribusiness and cybersecurity, and generate ideas that can potentially revolutionize established fields, including mining and healthcare.

  • Grow-NY:  A Geneva, N.Y.-based company, RealEats America, was announced on Nov. 13 as the first $1 million winner of the Grow-NY Business Competition, focused on growing innovation in food and agriculture in Central New York, the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier regions. Grow-NY winners commit to operating in those regions for at least one year. RealEats was one of 17 finalists out of nearly 200 food and agriculture startups that applied to the competition. Runners-up from Syracuse, Ithaca and Victor were awarded two $500,000 prizes and four $250,000 prizes. The competition is being administered through Cornell University’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement.
  • IDEA NY: Albany-based United Aircraft Technologies (UAT) was the winner of $200,000 in seed funding in the IDEA NY business accelerator competition. The company was awarded the funding at a demo day event on Nov. 13 at Griffiss Institute in Rome, where six teams from the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate Commercialization Academy pitched startup ideas across cyber security, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), big data and information systems. Runner-up and Syracuse-based PreVision Corp. won $100,000. The winners will work with UAT in a yearlong IDEA NY accelerator program at Griffiss, where they will receive the technical assistance needed to grow their businesses.
  • 43North:  Buffalo-based 43North announced its sixth-round winners on Oct. 30, with St.Louis-based Strayos, using AI to improve efficiency and reduce costs in mining operations, winning the $1 million grand prize. Seven other winners—from Buffalo, Houston, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and New York City—received $500,000 each in investments. 43North companies receive free incubator space in Buffalo—and the seeds of the competition have taken solid root in the local economy. In July, Governor Cuomo announced that 43North companies have created more than 500 jobs in Western New York. And earlier in November, ACV Auctions – a Buffalo-based 43North portfolio company—became Buffalo’s first tech unicorn, with a valuation of more than $1.5 billion.