By the time a company’s success is widely noticed, the founders and employees have already put in months, maybe years, of groundwork that goes unseen: Raising money, competing at pitch competitions, hiring, building headquarters and more.
With Startups to Watch 2023, the Business Review is highlighting some Albany-area startups that are in the middle of that process and recognizing the momentum they have going forward. Those behind-the-scenes stages in startups are the ones that often go unsung before the perceived “overnight success” that lands on people’s radar.
Meet the people behind the startups preparing for a big year in our area and how they got into position for growth.
KEY CAPTURE ENERGY
Key Capture Energy has about 100 megawatts of energy storage projects in New York state, and that number is about to explode.
“By 2030, only a little over seven years from now, we’ll be effectively 60 times that amount,” said Jeff Bishop, CEO of Key Capture Energy.
That pipeline has been put in place since South Korea-based conglomerate SK Group acquired the Albany-based company almost a year ago with plans to invest $1 billion.
Key Capture Energy develops, constructs, owns and operates large-scale battery systems that store energy created by hydro, wind or other systems. The battery is connected directly to the grid, so it can offload stored energy during times of peak energy use, helping to stabilize the grid.
The company is currently building near Buffalo what it says will be the largest battery in the state — 20 megawatts.
The company grew from two to 20 employees in less than four years.
Key Capture Energy now has about 70 employees, nearly half of them in the state, with roughly 15 job openings. It has other offices in Houston and Salt Lake City, with plans to open another in New York City.
Industry: Alternative energy
Founded: 2016
Founders: Jeff Bishop and Dan Fitzgerald
Headquarters: Albany
SHIPOLOGY
In an effort to solve shipping issues for other small businesses, Shipology founders Keri Wytrwal and Amanda Schermerhorn invested $1,000 to start the business in January 2021.
Since then, Shipology has doubled revenue every six months, and it’s possible they could hit $1 million in revenue next year. They also recently expanded their warehouse space at the Riverview Center in Menands.
Shipology is a third-party fulfillment company that provides small to medium-sized e-commerce businesses with order fulfillment, inventory management, discounted shipping rates, packing consulting, transportation and print shop services.
The goal of the combined offerings is to help clients scale up.
Shipology uses the power of the combined volume of their small-business clients to get better shipping rates on the business’ behalf with large carriers like DHL and FedEx.
It offers clients services for warehousing, packing orders, shipping supplies, special projects and, soon, printing services. Shipping is provided at cost.
Wytrwal and Schermerhorn have experience with large retailers, so clients also get access to the co-founders’ backgrounds in marketing and logistics. They’re able to help clients set up their supply chain and give products UPCs, which are often required at larger warehouses but not Shipology’s.
Industry: Logistics
Founded: 2021
Founders: Keri Wytrwal and Amanda Schermerhorn
Headquarters: Menands
ROCKET SCIENCE
Rocket Science, founded by a local video game industry veteran, is getting ready for takeoff. The company fulfills development contracts for other video game companies — an area where there’s plenty of work.
The company makes pieces of online multiplayer games. It’s hired at least 15 people since it was founded this past summer and it plans to employ 40-50 people in Glenville. Rocket Science UK, the second arm of the company in Cardiff, Wales, just hired its third person.
Rocket Science plans to hire 100 people between three locations by year five.
It purchased a 9,000-square-foot former firehouse in Glenville for $350,000 and is investing roughly $1.5 million for a full renovation.
The plan is to open the facility by early summer. It will include the Rocket Science studio, space for small video game companies and another space for gaming workforce development in partnership with Tech Valley Game Space.
Rocket Science was founded by Brian Corrigan — whose experience includes roles at Agora Games, MadGlory, Velan Studios and Krafton — and Tom Daniel, former head of business development for Unity Software, a publicly traded video game software development company. Rocket Science is up to four clients, which cannot be named for privacy reasons.
Industry: Video games
Founded: 2022
Founders: Brian Corrigan and Tom Daniel
Headquarters: Glenville
HELIOS LIFE ENTERPRISES
Helios Life Enterprises has raised over a million dollars from both angel investors and crowdfunding, and its technology is catching the attention of others in the industry.
The early technology being developed by the Saratoga-based company can analyze and derive meaning from tonal shifts in speech.
It basically acquires and organizes huge amounts of audio-based data using its proprietary software platform, then sells that data to companies. That area of data sales was valued at $2.7 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $143 billion by 2030.
Helios says its tech can be used to measure the confidence portrayed by CEOs during investor calls. The startup is working with major hedge fund clients as product customers right now.
The product can be customized to focus on specific tonal aspects based on what a customer is interested in targeting. For example, a marketing firm could use one aspect of the data to better understand consumer interest in a movie.
Recently, the company was selected out of thousands of applicants to compete at TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200 — a competition of the world’s top early-stage startups for equity-free prize money and the attention of media and investors worldwide. Alumni of the competition include companies such as Dropbox, Fitbit and Mint.
Industry: Technology
Founded: 2017
Founders: Sean Austin and Dr. Gerwin Schalk
Headquarters: Saratoga Springs
MYLÚA HEALTH
MyLÚA Health is a digital maternal care platform focused on improving prenatal and postpartum health care as well as patient education. And it’s aiming to launch commercially come spring.
The app works by using AI to analyze a mother’s health care information to assess her risk for pregnancy comorbidities, which physicians and other maternal care workers can see through their side of the app.
The app collects info inputted by the user, vitals gathered from a remote patient monitoring device like a blood pressure cuff or a weight scale, and data from electronic medical records.
Product testing is being completed at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, which is owned by Michigan-based Trinity Health. A patient pilot will then be completed there, as well as at Samaritan Hospital in Troy and an undecided third Trinity hospital.
The startup’s digital app has been designed with a particular focus on people from groups that are generally underserved.
There’s a big discrepancy in the quality of maternal health care often experienced by Black women and other women of color. Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The startup is raising a seed round of $2.5 million and has won a couple of startup awards, including one from Cornell Tech for creating “positive societal impact” and $50,000 from the new Shovel Ready fund through Innovate 518.
Industry: Health care
Founded: 2020
Founders: J’Vanay Santos, Michael Conward
Headquarters: Albany
LIVINGSTON ENERGY GROUP
The federal and state governments are pushing for the adoption of electric vehicles, and that’s translated to some significant business for Livingston Energy Group.
The Schenectady company sells custom EV charging stations for electric cars and other vehicles. Each of the stations are connected to the cloud, allowing the company to monitor use of the units and continually push software updates.
Last year, Livingston crossed into eight figures of revenue, having grown 10 times in the past two years, according to the partners, and they say there’s more to come.
Livingston was expected to triple the number of units sold in 2021 compared to the previous year, as they had in 2020, but it quadrupled that number instead.
The company was up to 15 people in 2020, and it has since expanded to almost 100 employees.
Up next: Selling its methods for EV charging network deployment. Lynkwell is an integration platform built to make connecting charging networks with different charging equipment as easy as possible.
Industry: Alternative energy
Founded: 2016
Founders: Schuyler Poukish and Jason Zarillo
Headquarters: Schenectady
