Startups to Watch

New Mexico has a diverse selection of startups making exciting moves in industries like biotechnology, aerospace and hydrogen energy.

And there are a lot of resources available to help these burgeoning young companies throughout the Land of Enchantment grow, whether they come from the south desert near Las Cruces or are tucked under the Jemez Mountains in Los Alamos.

Last year, New Mexico Inno highlighted 10 such companies in its inaugural Startups to Watch List. Now, that List is back, packed with 10 more startups that we think are primed for a big 2023.

Startups to Watch honorees were selected by the Albuquerque Business First editorial team. New Mexico Inno Reporter Jacob Maranda led the search. When considering each honoree, he looked at how the startups performed in 2022, as well as what they have planned in 2023.

All of the startups are featured in a special print edition of Business First published on Feb. 3. In the coming days online, you'll also have a chance to read about each business and learn about the work they are doing to grow their startups in New Mexico and beyond.

When Victor Kuhns, a co-founder and chief technology officer for Hoonify Technologies Inc., asked a student what they thought a supercomputer was, he got a funny response.

"Supercomputers are computers that fly," Kuhns said, quoting the student.

Of course, supercomputers aren't computers that fly. Rather, they're usually large, extremely powerful and quite expensive high-performance computing systems used by national laboratories and government institutions.

But instead of keeping these computers tucked away and only accessible to select scientists and researchers, Albuquerque-based Hoonify Technologies wants to make supercomputing "ubiquitous."

That's how John Zivnuska, a co-founder and chief operating officer for Hoonify, described the startup's goal.

"There's 90% of companies across the world that don't have access to any type of supercomputing capabilities," Zivnuska said. "We want to get [supercomputers] in the hands of everybody, because everybody has answers."

Established in November 2021, Hoonify has a desktop supercomputer called The Cub that, according to the company's website, "comes pre-configured with Hoonify's propriety software." It's working on another high-performance computing product, too, called Edge, that it could roll out this year.

And the startup can tailor its supercomputers to different use cases, including at-home desktops, office setups or enterprise solutions.

"Our software is a horizontally enabling technology," said Andrew Clark, a co-founder and Hoonify's CEO. "It benefits oil, mining and gas. It benefits biotech, it benefits defense research institutions, automotive R&D, you name it. Supercomputing enables all of those for faster results."

In addition to Kuhns, Zivnuska and Clark, Hoonify is led by Vice President of Software Development Connor Brown and Vice President of Hardware Development Blake Kinnan. All five are former Sandia National Laboratories employees.

It's working with clients that include Texas-based Laser Shot Simulations, Dallas-based DeliverFund and Tennessee-based Accurate Energetic Systems LLC, as well as some large multinational and academic institutions, although the startup didn't disclose details about those partnerships.

Zivnuska said that the startup is raising a seed round for over $1.5 million to fund more prototyping and software development. He's hoping to close the round in the next few months.