Join 200+ people active in VC + Growth and PE + M&A in Upstate NY on December 8 in Rochester. Annual Awards is Upstate Capital’s marquee event celebrating the successes of our community. Please read Upstate Capital’s COVID policy by clicking here.
Tickets and Tables
Individual tickets: in-person tickets are $195 for guests and $150 for members, and online-only passes are $75 for guests and $30 for members
Table sponsorship – Receive eight (8) tickets and recognition at the event for your support for $1,500
Bundle membership & table sponsorship and save $250 – Get an Upstate Capital Corporate Membership for next year and a table at the Annual Awards Celebration for $2,000
Program: Annual AwardsrnrnWe will recognize the people investing in companies, advising CEOs, and putting together deals that leverage private capital to launch, grow and strategically impact companies across New York.
Malik Evans
Financial Wellness Manager at ESL Federal Credit Union
Malik Evans has spent his career working to advance the overall Financial well -being of individuals and businesses. Malik is currently the Financial Wellness Manager at ESL Federal Credit union, where he manages the Financial Wellness Service Line of Business. Malik is responsible for understanding market opportunities, risks, and trends and determining market objectives and solutions for the effective execution of ESL’s Financial Wellness strategy. Malik joined ESL in 2014 to serve as the Business Growth Program Manager, in that position he spearheaded efforts to create shared value through driving business growth in the Greater Rochester area. Shared value is a program that enhances company competitiveness while simultaneously solving economic and social problems in the community. Prior to joining ESL, he was a Vice President at M&T Bank Corporation. Malik’s extensive community service includes currently serving on the Rochester City Council where he chairs the Finance Committee. Malik previously served on the Rochester Board of Education where he holds the distinction of being the youngest person ever elected to the Board he served as Board President for six years. He is a past Board member of the Rochester Area Community Foundation; Catholic Family Center Board of Directors, Hope Hall School Board of Directors. He has served on numerous boards and commissions over the years. Malik currently serves on the Rochester Museum and Science Center Board of Directors, the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship (CUE) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the PathStone Enterprise Center Board, which is a Community Development Financial Institution, The Rochester Community Foundation Charitable Distribution Committee, The Greater Rochester Convention Center Board of Directors and he is a founding board member of the Commissary, the first downtown Kitchen Incubator for food entrepreneurs in Upstate New York. Malik is a native of Rochester, he graduated from the University of Rochester with a BA degree, he also holds a Master’s Degree from Nazareth College.
Founder at Cloud Storage Security, SecureCloudDB, and CloudCheckr
Experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry. Has raised over $100m in capital and led four companies from concept to acquisition. Strong entrepreneur skilled in Enterprise Software, Application Security, Business Development, Entrepreneurship, and Venture Capital.
President & CEO, Upstate Capital Association of New York
Noa Simons is an entrepreneur, investor and ecosystem builder. She leads the Upstate Capital Association of New York, an organization that increases access to capital for companies across the state. Noa manages a robust membership network and convenes events on technology, trends and best practices for investors, entrepreneurs and professional advisors. She emphasizes collaboration and inclusion across the ecosystem.rnrnShe participates in several investment initiatives across the Upstate NY ecosystem. She is a co-founder, former manager and current advisor to the Hudson Valley Startup Fund, a member-managed place-based seed capital fund. She is an Executive Advisor to Genius NY, a $5M business plan competition focused on unmanned systems and big data/IoT startups. She serves on the Launch NY Investment Committee, the Jeff Lawrence Manufacturing Innovation Grants Committee, the Tech Garden’s External Review Committee for Grants for Growth, and on the board of the Hudson Valley Technology Development Center. She is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for NYSERDA. rnrnPrior, Noa worked in a private family office that led to the launch of a China-based venture capital firm. She managed early-stage startup tech-to-commercialization projects in wind turbine development and waste-to-energy. At TD Growth Capital, she sourced early stage technologies in the cleantech sector and conducted deep due diligence, primarily in energy and transportation. Through the family office, Noa also served as interim CEO at Norton Motorcycles in Portland, Oregon, and she built and launched the digital archive housed at the Mary Ferrell Foundation. She started her career at a fast-growing education company headquartered in the Boston, MA area. rnrnShe earned a B.A. in Politics from Brandeis University, and attended Miss Hall’s School where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.
Rami is Chief Operating Officer at Excell Partners where he manages a team of venture analysts leading investment review and the due-diligence process leading to investments. He provides guidance and strategic mentoring to invested portfolio companies through BOD stewardship and CEO mentoring. He has also been a lecturer at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester for 7 years. In addition to Upstate Capital, he is a board member at HealthVantics. Rami earned his LLB (Bachelor of Laws) at Tel Aviv University and an MBA at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.
Senior VP/Director, Business Banking at ESL Federal Credit Union
When Keith joined ESL in 2014 to lead our business banking division, he brought over 25 years of retail and commercial banking experience with him. A Rochester native, Keith began his professional career with Marine Midland Bank in 1988 and quickly assumed positions of increasing responsibilities in credit analysis, branch management, and commercial relationship management. In 2001, M&T Bank recruited him as a business banking team leader in Rochester. M&T later tapped Keith to build out its Business Banking capabilities in eastern Pennsylvania as Regional Manager.rnrnDedicated to his community, Keith has been actively involved on various boards and charitable organizations, including the Rochester Economic Development Corporation board, the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation board, the Urban League of Rochester board, the Wilmot Cancer Institute Advancement Committee, and United Way of Greater Rochester Campaign Cabinet. Keith holds a BA from St. Bonaventure University in Management and Marketing.
Michael McQueeney, Managing Partner Emeritus, Summer Street Capital Partners One of Summer Street’s founding partners, Mike has over 30 years of experience investing in middle market companies. Mike oversaw the firm’s investment activities, operations, and investor relations
RealEats, a meal delivery service headquartered in Geneva, NY, raised $16.3M in a Series A Round in October, 2021. The round was led by Hamilton Lane on behalf of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, and included global health and wellness brand GNC, and Upstate Capital members Armory Square Ventures and Excell Partners.
Evaguel Rhysing, President & CEOrnLeon Greene, Hudson Valley Startup FundrnUnited Aircraft Technologies, Inc. (“UAT”), an emerging leader in aerospace technology, announced the completion of an oversubscribed $1.35 million financing round as well as an additional $350k of non-dilutive financing. Hudson Valley Startup Fund led the round, with participation from Lever, The Alchemy Fund, and Westchester Angels.
Irfan Khan, CEO of Circuit ClinicalrnTom Quinn, CEO of WNY Impact Investment FundrnrnCircult Clinical helps patients and doctors connect for clinical trials. The company raised over $20M in the past year from many investors, including Upstate Capital members Launch NY and the Buffalo Angels.
MimiVax closed on a $5,000,000 raise in 2021 to fund a Phase 2 clinical trial of a vaccine to treat brain cancer (glioblastoma).MimiVax is astartup pharmaceutical company in Buffalo, NY developing cancer therapeutics discovered at Roswell Park. The company worked closely with Upstate Capital supporters from the Lippes Mathias law firm and Varia Ventures in completing the raise.
TCGplayer is a technology company based in Syracuse focused in the collectibles industry and operator of an online marketplace for trading card games. They raised $35M from Vista Credit partners to fund continued growth earlier this year.
Fred Sarkis, President & CEOrnPharmasmart, based in Rochester, manufactures technology enabled health kiosks that collect and manage patient data such as blood pressure, weight, BMI and blood glucose, and provides value-added health IT services. The company raised growth capital from Toronto-based firm CPS to accelerate PharmaSmart’s growth strategy across Canada and the United States.
Khadesha Okwudili, Founder & CEOrnAgape closed a $1.8M seed round led by by Harlem Capital with particiaption from Upstate Capital members Launch NY, Jack Greco and several other investors. Agape creates and sustains healthy human relationships through its relationship wellness app.
Gabe Bialkowski, Founder & CEOrnEllicottville Greens is an indoor vertical farm management company that grows produce sustainably. The company raised $1 million from Varia Ventures to triple its production capabilities in Western NY.
Wasim Khaled, CEO & Co-FounderrnBlackbird AI is based in Rochester and has raised a total of $11.25M, closed 6 fortune 100 clients, booked 7 figures in ARR and went from 6 to 26 FTEs across 4 countries in the past year.
David Rodriguez, CEOrnCouncil Rock, an RIT Venture Creations company, develops telecommunication products and service solutions for smart grid communications. They raised $7M in a round led by Grand Oaks Capital, with participation from Motorola Ventures.
Hammer Packaging Corporation was acquired by Fort Dearborn. The combined organization takes advantage of Hammer’s state-of-the-art technology to enhance Fort Dearborn’s leadership position in the decorative label and packaging marketplace. Upstate Capital members Jeff Lewis and Dave Dinolfo from the Bonadio Group helped to orchestrate and facilitate the transaction.
Aaron Newman, Chairman & FounderrnGeorge Kurian, Chief Executive Officer at NetApprnCloudCheckr, a cloud optimization platform service company built in Rochester, was acquired by NetApp, a Fortune 500 company. A few years ago, CloudCheckr was recognized for raising growth capital, and this ultimate exit is a great success for the this Finger Lakes-based company.
Terry Gao, CEO, Caitec rnRyan Martin, Founder and Managing Partner of Fairchild Capital PartnersrnrnCaitec is rolling up pet industry-related companies leveraging support from Buffalo-based team of capital providers including private equity investor Ryan Martin and Sean Moskal at KeyBank.
Mike Brown, CEO, Deathwish CoffeernCory Martin, CVA, Managing Director, Schwartz Heslin GrouprnDeathwish Coffee was nominated by SHG, showcasing the strength of the Capital Region-based company to attract capital from TA Associates to fund its growth, and the depth of the SHG team in positioning the company and connecting founders to capital.
Mike Faulkner, President & CEOrnAri David Kocen, Founding Partner of Bluehenge Capital PartnersrnrnWeco Manufacturing Group is a portfolio company of Fairchild Capital Partners, led by Upstate Capital member Ryan Martin. The company continues to build out precision machining capabilities through acquisitions, including two Henrietta-based companies in the past few months.
Pete Smith – Executive Director, USA Sealing, Kevin Brady, Co-FounderrnNewbury FranklinrnrnUSA Sealing was acquired by Newbury Franklin, to provide the cornerstone for Newbury Franklin Industrials, headquartered in Buffalo NY. Newbury Franklin Industrials is positioned to be a leading supplier of consumable industrial components serving the industrial and commercial markets in North America. Upstate Capital member KeyBank participated in the financing.
iM3NY’s total funding of $85 million includes a $50 million senior-secured term loan from Riverstone Credit Partners and $35 million of equity funding, or which $23.6 million is from investments made by Magnis earlier this year. Along with this funding, iM3NY has $230 million of manufacturing assets in place.
The company received $82 million of development capital from SER Capital Partners on August 10, 2021. The funds will be used to expand the company’s balance sheet and its ability to implement, finance, invest in and acquire a broad range of clean energy projects and solutions, thereby enabling its customers to reduce operating costs and mitigate their environmental footprint at no upfront expense.
The company closed a venture round in excess of $4 million from multiple parties and secured a federal contract of $8.6 million from IARPA. Conamix also launched out of stealth and won a global award for Clean Energy Research at CleanEquity Monaco in July.
DSD Renewables, founded inside GE in 2012, was fully acquired by BlackRock. The company provides solar energy and storage solutions at scale for large customers, and is a major player in renewable energy adoption across the US.
Jonathan Strimling, Chairman & CEOrnCleanFiber raised nearly $12M over the past year, including investment from the Western NY Impact Investment Fund, bringing total funds raised to nearly $40M. The Buffalo-based company manufactures cellulose-based insulation material made from recycled corrugated cardboard boxes.
Details
Join us as we highlight significant investments and transactions impacting our VC + Growth ecosystem and PE + M&A deal-making community. We will recognize the people investing in companies, advising CEOs, and putting together deals that leverage private capital to launch, grow and strategically impact companies across New York. You’ll be with early stage angel and seed, venture capital, growth equity, and middle market private equity investors, along with entrepreneurs, CEOs, M&A advisors and transaction professionals doing deals.
Together, we’ll raise a glass to congratulate companies and colleagues for their successes, and start valuable relationships to cultivate in the coming year.
Audience
Over 200 entrepreneurs, CEOs, executives, investors and capital providers (angel, seed, venture, private equity, private debt and senior lenders), professional advisors (attorneys, accountants, investment bankers, consultants, and key stakeholders (local and regional press, local and state politicians)
Upstate Capital COVID Policy
Upstate Capital’s COVID policy is designed to help ensure that we can continue meeting in-person with confidence in our safety precautions.
All guests, upon picking up name tags at the registration desk, will be asked either to show proof of vaccination, or evidence of a negative PCR test within 72 hours of the event.
We thank you for your cooperation as we navigate this challenging environment together.
