Invest NY: Health & Wellbeing

Startup & Investor Showcase – three minute pitches from startups innovating in New York

Group Networking – hosted by Upstate Capital

Upstate Capital Welcome

Keynote Conversation: Vikram Agrawal, president and CEO, Levrx

Vikram Agrawal

Levrx

Vikram Agrawal serves as President, CEO, & Co-Founder of Levrx. In his role, Vikram is responsible for the vision, product strategy, and business development. Vikram’s previous experience in business and information technology fields is critical to the success of Levrx.

State of the Industry: Jason Helgerson, CEO, Helgerson Solutions

Jason Helgerson

Helgerson Solutions Group

Jason Helgerson founded Helgerson Solutions Group and serves as its Chief Executive Officer, leading the firm’s mission of making the world a better place. Jason also leads the firm’s portfolio of venture capital and private equity advising, as well as engaging in international comparative work, bringing the best ideas to change-makers across the globe.

Building Opollo in Buffalo, Ryan Young, founder of Opollo with Christina Orsi, University of Buffalo and Clayton Besch, New York Ventures

Ryan Young

Opollo

Ryan Young is the Founder & CEO of Opollo Technologies, a healthcare technology startup. The company’s flagship product, Opollo™, is a deep neural network which also utilizes medical natural language processing to provide the most accurate surgery duration forecasts on the market today.

Clayton Besch

New York Ventures

Clayton Besch is the Director of ESD’s New York Ventures which works to bolster the critical capital needs of New York State’s innovation economy by providing seed and early-stage venture funding to high growth startups as they move from concept to commercialization, through early growth and expansion.

Christina Orsi

University at Buffalo

Christina Orsi serves at the Associate Vice President for Economic Development at the University at Buffalo (UB). UB is among the largest and most comprehensive research Universities in New York State. Bringing more than two decades of experience in economic development, she guides university-wide economic development efforts.

Investing in Life Sciences in NYC with Maria Gotsch, Partnership Fund for NYC and Sharon Rutter, NY Ventures

Maria Gotsch

Partnership Fund for New York City

Maria G. Gotsch is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Partnership Fund for New York City, which is the investment arm of the Partnership for New York City. The Fund, which has invested over $170 million, has built a network of top experts from the investment and corporate communities who help identify and support NYC’s most promising entrepreneurs in both the for-profit and non-for profit sectors.

Sharon Rutter

NY Ventures

Sharon Rutter currently serves as Senior Director, NY Ventures operating out of New York State’s economic development agency (“ESD”). Rutter successfully designed and managed the Innovate NY Fund, a $45 million fund-of-funds funded with $35 million of federal program funds and $10 million from Goldman Sachs.

Introduction to the Masonic Medical Research Institute, with Maria Kontaridis

Maria Kontaridis

Masonic Medical Research Institute

Dr. Maria Irene Kontaridis is currently the Director of Research at the Masonic Medical Research Institute in Utica, NY. She also holds a part-time faculty appointment as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Department of Medicine/Division of Cardiology in Boston, MA.

Scalable regional partner for entrepreneurs and biotechs: Trudeau in the North Country, with Atsuo Kuki, Ph.D.

Atsuo Kuki

Trudeau Institute

Dr. Atsuo Kuki joined the Trudeau Institute in 2016 as President and Director bringing a passion for transformational leadership in biomedical science and technology.

Investor Perspectives with Lindsay Stencel of Thompson Hine LLP, Theresa Mazzullo of Excell Partners, Somak Chattopadhyay of Armory Square Ventures and Brian Model of Topmark Partners

Lindsay Karas Stencel

Thompson Hine

Lindsay Karas Stencel has been in venture capital for nearly 15 years. She is a Partner at Thompson Hine LLP running the VC and Emerging Companies group in Columbus where she focuses on growing venture capital, and increasing capital access generally, for entrepreneurs throughout the Midwest, representing venture firms and startups from Albany to Chicago.

Brian Model

Topmark Partners

Brian Model is a Growth Stage Venture Capitalist focused predominantly on high potential business-to-business technology-enabled companies based in up-and-coming regions. He is a Managing Partner and is responsible for the overall operations of Topmark Partners, including sourcing, underwriting, and executing the firm’s growth equity investments.

Theresa Mazzullo

Excell Partners

Theresa Mazzullo has been the CEO of Excell Partners since 2006. She has a 30-year track record in business, finance and entrepreneurship. Having owned and sold a small business, she brings firsthand knowledge, unique skills, and proven experience to the seed stage investment arena. Her duties include governance, compliance, reporting, community integration, finance and fundraising.

Somak Chattopadhyay

Armory Square Ventures

Somak Chattopadhyay has been operating and investing in early-stage startups in New York State and other emerging venture regions since 1999. Before launching Armory Square Ventures in 2014, he was a partner at Tribeca Venture Partners, where he was instrumental in nearly every investment of its first fund and helped launch its second fund.