Investors Call Turbonomic Boston's 'Next Pillar Tech Co.' for 2017 NEVYs [Award List]

A group of local venture capitalists thinks Turbonomic has the potential to become Boston's next pillar tech company.

The cloud optimization startup, which raised a $50 million financing round in January, took the top honor in the tech category for the New England Venture Capital Association's NEVY Awards on Wednesday night. The ceremony also gave awards to autonomous vehicle startup nuTonomy, Desktop Metal CEO Ric Fulop and early HubSpot investor Joe Caruso.

NuTonomy, in particular, has been helping put the Boston startup scene on the map for its work on self-driving cars. Last year, the startup beat Uber in becoming the first company to start testing a fleet of self-driving cars. The MIT spin-off company, which has raised nearly $20 million in capital, is now testing self-driving cars in Boston's Seaport.

The NEVCA handed out a total of 18 awards between the NEVY's technology and life sciences categories. Among the awards, the NEVCA gave IMPACT awards to Vertex CEO Jeffrey Leiden and former Vertex President Vicki Sato for their "large-scale, long-term contributions to the region's entrepreneurial ecosystem."

The winners were determined by two "academies:" one for technology and another for healthcare and life sciences. The Tech Academy included several venture capitalists: Scott Friend of Bain Capital, Michael Skok of Underscore.VC, Steve Taub of GE Ventures, Bob Hower of G20 Ventures, Nilanjana Bhowmik of Converge and Neil Chheda of Romulus Capital. Ellen Rubin of ClearSky Data, Corey Thomas of Rapid7 and Tibor Toth of MassCEC were also on the panel.

Here are all the winners for the 2017 NEVYs:

Technology Category:

Healthcare & Life Sciences Category: