In the startup world, success is almost always a slow burn. It starts with the spark of an idea and gains momentum over years. Along the way, it takes effort to fan the flames and keep them fueled.
This year’s Inno Fire highlights the startups, people and places helping those sparks grow into something bigger. For some, it’s meant landing an important infusion of new funding. For others, it’s all about doing the hard work of scaling a new product. And in some cases, it’s just about making sure the right people connect.
It’s a showcase of promising people and ideas in the local startup ecosystem as they start to heat up.
Market opportunity: PopPD
Alissa McDonald and Megan Kensington, both former teachers, saw an opportunity to aggregate educator-focused media content onto one platform.
The result is PopPD, a startup that offers a service where educators can post video lessons to help other teachers with professional development in the classroom. The lessons are typically broad concepts on teaching strategies, rather than single-day lesson plans. An hourlong lesson is typically $40-$50 to access.
The company is in the middle of raising a $500,000 pre-seed round. Beta Boom, an investment fund focused on funding software companies founded by women and underrepresented populations, nearly closed the round with its investment of $300,000.
With the pre-seed funding, McDonald said PopPD is working on the second iteration of its platform.
“This is more of: Choose your goal and then work through some demo videos and some modeling from other teachers so that it’s really easy to implement the strategies that you’re learning — much more like Instagram style, more social media than what we had originally put out,” McDonald said.
McDonald is a former South Glens Falls teacher. Kensington is a former high school teacher based in Boston.
About the company
Founder: Alissa McDonald, Megan Kensington
Industry: Education technology
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: Saratoga Springs
Notable investors: Scout
Former Siena College basketball star Michael Haddix Jr. is positioning his startup for the next phase of growth with help from some big name investors, including basketball stars Chris Paul and Jimmer Fredette as well as NFL players.
After graduating from Siena in 2007, Haddix pursued a career in finance and personal money management, during which he started managing money for athletes including Paul, Steph Curry and Michael Phelps. That sparked his first business, Empower3d, a consulting business that taught financial literacy to college and professional athletes.
Those conversations with clients about how stocks work — and why it’s worth investing — led to athletes asking the next question: How do I get started?
Haddix co-founded Scout as a way to help answer those questions. It’s a financial investment/literacy platform for young athletes geared toward building long-term wealth.
To date, Scout has raised $2.7 million from a group of initial investors. Haddix now plans to raise another round of funding and team up with schools and their athletes to offer services.
About the company
Founder: Michael Haddix
Industry: Financial technology
Founded: 2021
Headquarters: Clifton Park
Next level: UCM Digital Health
UCM Digital Health cleared the initial startup hurdles of fundraising and hiring a team.
Now, it is in the process of actually deploying its technology.
UCM provides a platform through which patients can work with emergency medicine providers to determine whether an issue requires an ER visit or a different type of care. That assistance can help patients avoid taking a potentially unnecessary — and expensive — trip to the emergency room. The company has hundreds of clients and operates in all 50 states.
In January, UCM launched its latest product, Treatment in Place. It’s available to MVP Health Care members after they call 911 and emergency medical services are dispatched. UCM’s emergency medical staff is contacted by EMS for patients with non-life-threatening conditions. Patients can then be treated by the physicians via telemedicine in tandem with the EMTs and paramedics.
UCM raised $5.5 million in a series A funding round in 2021.
About the company
Founders: Keith Algozzine, Michael Bibighaus
Industry: Health care
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Troy
Next-gen tech: Helios Life Enterprises
Artificial intelligence is the hottest topic in tech right now, but Helios Life Enterprises was already ahead of the curve.
Helios is developing technology it says can analyze and derive meaning from tonal shifts in speech, specifically in the comments made by executives during earnings calls. The Helios software listens to every earnings call of all 4,400 U.S. public companies, co-founder Sean Austin said.
Helios is basically in the business of acquiring and organizing huge amounts of audio-based data using its proprietary software platform, then selling that data to companies. That area of data sales – called alternative data – was valued at $2.7 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $143 billion by 2030.
In the case of the financial services industry, Austin says the 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.
Last year, the startup pitched at national competitions that have produced some of the most well-known companies in tech: South by Southwest and TechCrunch Disrupt.
About the company
Founders: Sean Austin, Gerwin Schalk
Industry: Deep tech
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: Saratoga Springs
Product to watch: MyBacon from MyForest Foods
Over the past few years, MyForest Foods has been working toward scaling its plant-based bacon production for wider distribution.
Now, with new funding and new leadership, that’s what it plans to do.
MyForest is an outgrowth of Ecovative, which has spent years developing strains of mycelium — the root-like structure of mushrooms — to be used for a range of products. A strain that closely resembles meat is used to make a bacon substitute that MyForest calls MyBacon.
In June, Ecovative closed a $30 million Series E funding round. Half of the raise will be reinvested into MyForest and will support its effort to expand the availability of MyBacon in stores along the East Coast.
The company announced at the same time that Greg Shewchuk, who previously held senior leadership positions at firms such as Campbell Soup Co. and Unilever, had been hired as the new CEO of MyForest Foods. Eben Bayer, who had been serving as CEO, said it was time to bring on leadership with experience in marketing and consumer goods as the company moves into more widespread commercial sales.
About the company
Founders: Spinoff of Ecovative, founded by Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre
Industry: Plant-based food
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: Indoor farm in Green Island, production in Albany
Hot spot: ETEC at UAlbany
The Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurship Complex is a $180 million, 246,000-square-foot building just east of UAlbany’s main campus on the Harriman State Office Campus. It’s home to researchers, educators and entrepreneurs. The goal for the complex, which debuted in 2021: To generate more collaboration between the university’s research and the area’s emerging companies.
The UAlbany Innovation Center is on the ground floor. The 2,600-square-foot incubator space is adjacent to a 2,400-square-foot space that can be leased out to companies interested in partnership opportunities.
The Innovation Center is home to Innovate518, the Capital Region’s state-funded innovation hotspot, which acts as a connector between the area’s startup resources.
ETEC also includes over 40 labs for more than 200 full-time faculty and researchers and 100 research and industry partners as well.
About the space
What: The Emerging Technology and Entrepre-neurship Complex houses research and the regions’s state-funded incubator.
When: Debuted in 2021
Where: It’s just eat of UAlbany’s Harriman State Office Campus.
Project to watch: National Semiconductor Technology Center
As more semiconductor companies set up operations in New York, the question remains: Will the state — specifically Albany — get a piece of the National Semiconductor Technology Center?
The headquarters for the federal government’s semiconductor research and development effort is one of the prizes in the CHIPS Act, a multibillion-dollar package of legislation aimed at boosting computer chip manufacturing in this country. Landing the center could mean 1,000 new jobs for the area.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is pushing for the NSTC to be in New York, and he continues to be involved in efforts to bring more semiconductor companies to the state.
New York has some momentum. Companies like GlobalFoundries and Wolfspeed already have manufacturing operations upstate, with Micron and Menlo Micro on the way. IBM is doing cutting-edge R&D at the Albany Nanotech Complex. And an organization called the National Institute for Innovation and Technology is working to build job pipelines for the state’s semiconductor companies, — a process it started in the Capital Region.
It’s unclear when an announcement will be made regarding where the center will be located.
About the center
What: The headquarters for the federal government’s semiconductor research and development
When: To be determined
Where: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has touted the Albany Nanotech Complex as the perfect shovel-ready site for the center
Key connector: Rich Honen
Rich Honen, a partner at the law firm Phillips Lytle, has specialized in the legal side of innovation for nearly 30 years.
Honen travels across the state judging business plan/pitch competitions and doing speaking engagements on topics that range from legal agreements for gamers to fundraising and beyond.
He also works with companies of all sizes, providing corporate counsel to startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Honen’s experience allows him to evaluate startups for potential success.
After nearly two decades as the office leader for Phillips Lytle’s Albany office, Honen recently passed on that position to another partner. That’s allowed him to focus more of his time on startups and innovation.
Quick info
Title: Partner, Philips Lytle LLP
Expertise: Mergers and acquisitions, complex corporate transactions and counsel, venture capital, startups and technology
Key connector: Noa Conger Simons
Noa Conger Simons leads the Upstate Capital Association, an organization that seeks to improve deal flow by connecting investors with companies seeking funding. It’s a statewide association that includes angel investors, venture capital investors, growth-equity investors, private-equity investors, financiers and asset-based lenders.
Conger Simons has an international background in venture capital, and her role with the association gives her an overhead view of startup activity statewide.
That inspired her to make it easier to connect all of the pieces of the innovation ecosystem upstate.
The association, along with Venture Hub, Innovate 518 and The Griffiss Institute, recently launched Invest NY — an open-access investment, deal-flow data and intelligence platform built for founders, investors, and entrepreneurship ecosystem professionals.
The platform’s goal is to make it easier to connect startups with potential investors and vice versa. Entrepreneurs can upload their pitch and signal when they’re fundraising or hiring, and investors can get access to upstate-specific information.
Quick info
Title: President and CEO, Upstate Capital Association
Expertise: Venture capital, connecting startups/investors
