Upstate Capital Annual Event

2022 Venture NY

WHEN: April 27, 2022

WHERE: WCNY, 415 W. Fayette St., Syracuse, NY

Keynote:

Seth Levine

Seth Levine

Elizabeth MacBride

Elizabeth MacBride

Speakers:

Nicholas Querques

Venture NY is New York’s premier event for the innovation community across New York. The event will feature:

  • High-growth startup pitches and investor networking
  • Panels on early stage investing and funding for companies
  • Syracuse Innovation Tour featuring TCG Player, lunch at the Salt City Market, the Tech Garden, and more
  • Grand prize NYBPC finals with $50,000 in cash prizes awarded
  • Keynote conversation with Seth Levine from the Foundry Group, and Elizabeth MacBride about their book, “The New Builders”, presented by Grasshopper Bank

Tickets

General Admission: $200 in-person, $100 online
Upstate Capital members: $150 in-person, $100 online
Students: $20 in-person, free online
Campus Professionals: $50 in-person, free online
Judges & Mentors: $100 in-person, free online

Membership: Not an Upstate Capital member? Join today.

Attendees

Investors:

  • Get access to unique deal flow
  • Make great connections in Upstate NY

Startups:

  • Pitch your company
  • Meet investors
  • Find ecosystem resources

Ecosystem partners:

  • Showcase your services supporting investors, startups and innovation in NY

Agenda

8:30AM

Roundtable Participants Welcome & Exhibitors Set Up

Invitation-only

9:00AM

Invite-Only CEO Roundtable
with Seth Levine and Elizabeth MacBride.

10:00AM

General registration opens

10:30AM

Conversation: Venture Capital & Philanthropy with the Allyn Family

Current challenges and areas for growth, a discussion on innovative solutions and how the Foundation’s thinking about investing is evolving.

11:30AM

Panel: Sources of Capital for Startups (all attendees welcome)

Participate in an open question-and-answer session to learn more about the ins and outs of different types of capital available for early-stage startups.

11:30AM

Syracuse Innovation Tour + Lunch (invitation only)
Walking tour of some of Syracuse’s innovation hot spots.

12:30PM

Lunch + Networking @ WCNY

2:00PM

The New York Business Plan Competition Grand Prize Finals
The NYBPC Grand Prize Finals: the top 6 teams from our statewide entrepreneurship competition will compete for the Grand Prize.

3:30PM

High Growth Startup Showcase

3-minute pitches from over a dozen seed-stage startups raising $500k-$2M, primarily SaaS companies, from across New York. Pitches will be followed by networking with early stage investors.

4:30PM

Open Networking 

5:00PM

Conversation with Seth Levine and Elizabeth MacBride
Meet the authors of The New Builders: Face to Face with the True Future of Business, presented by Grasshopper Bank.

Moderated by Noa Simons and Jeremy Shure.

5:45PM

NYBPC Prize Awards
Grand Prize + special prizes awarded to NYBPC teams. A total of $50,000 in cash prizes will be awarded!

6:15PM

Venture NY Reception + Networking



2022 HIGH-GROWTH STARTUP SHOWCASE

3-minute pitches from more than a dozen seed-stage startups raising $500k-$2M, primarily SaaS companies, from across New York. Pitches will be followed by networking with early stage investors.

Criteria for selection:

  • Seed-stage with MVP in market and early revenue
  • SaaS businesses preferred, sector agnostic

Matthew Fisch, FortMesa

FortMesa is a Saas cybersecurity platform that assesses, governs, and orchestrates best in class (according to frameworks such as NIST, CIS, SOC2, CMMC, HIPAA) security programs for your organization.

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Alejandro Crawford, RebelBase, Inc.

With its library of “project builder” modules and dedicated cohort and event functionality, RebelBase powers everything from innovation programs to mentorship and competitions.

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Duff Archie, OffWeGo

OffWeGo transforms needed travel safety behaviors through social connection, comparison of resources, and proven gamification techniques.

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Jay Schiff, Addinex Technologies, Inc.

Addinex Technologies, Inc. is a healthcare company using patented medication management system to reduce the risk of addiction, overdose, and death from prescription medications, including opioids, stimulants, and sedatives.

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Jake Cutler, Ampli-fi.io

A new Fintech platform aimed at equipment resellers to help make their job of quoting finance options faster and easier. Automations, analytics and a connections to a wide variety of finance options for your customers.

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Herbert Dwyer, Empower Equity, Inc.

Empower Equity, Inc. (EMPEQ) provides automated building equipment site surveys, energy audits, proposals, and financing solutions for the engineering and HVAC industries – resulting in more efficient and shorter project and sales cycles and greatly increased gross profit and accuracy.

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Calandra Cruickshank, StateBook International

StateBook International is the premier provider of comprehensive location intelligence. Through our platform and APIs, StateBook provides real-time and historical standardized data at every geography level in the U.S. around workforce, taxes, utility rates, infrastructure, supply chain, wages, quality of life, available incentives, and more.

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Sean De Clercq, Kickfurther

Kickfurther is the premier inventory funding platform that helps growing brands fund faster growth by enabling larger, more cost-effective inventory production.

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PJ Bellomo, P1ston, Inc.

The P1ston supply chain platform makes life easier for both customers and suppliers. Think better communication, better information, and better decisions while eliminating menial and time-consuming spreadsheet and email tasks.

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Yamillet Payano, Sign-Speak, Inc.

Sign-Speak’s mission is to facilitate communication between the Hearing and Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities. Sign-Speak provides automatic, real-time captioning and ASL to English interpreting services via an online platform and mobile application.

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Sam Eder, Big Wheelbarrow, Inc.

Big Wheelbarrow is supply chain software for the local market. We help grocers work with nearby farms and producers, therefore creating more sustainable cities.

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David Schropfer, SAFE, Inc.

SAFE is a private, convenient alternative to ‘Sign-In with Facebook,’ ‘Sign in with Google,’ and other social sign-in buttons which widely share and sell your personal data.

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Louis Bookoff, Busie

Busie provides the most comprehensive cloud-based charter quoting and booking software on the market. Digitize your entire charter process by offering instant quotes and online bookings directly on your website.

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Christine Tate, Vara Safety

Vara Safety is advancing firearm safety with biometric authentication. Reach 2 by Vara Safety is a handgun safe that provides immediate access to your firearm while keeping it secure. Using an advanced fingerprint sensor, the safe unlocks in 0.3 seconds for authorized users.

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Khadesha Okwudili, Agape

As the #1 relationship wellness app for couples, Agapé makes it easy for you to feel + show love. Agapé is the new way to say, “I love you” that will make + keep billions happy. With just 1 question a day, you can nurture a happy, mindful, beautiful life.

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William Testa, Direct Mail 2020

Located in Rochester, New York, Direct Mail 2020 has a patented process for connecting consumers looking for specific products and services with advertisers of those same products and services, and accumulating related information in a database.

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