For the second year in a row, Buffalo Inno is featuring 10 companies as startups to watch. Call it a symbol, if you will, of the continuing momentum of the local tech community.
In 2021, ACV Auctions went public, becoming a roadmap and beacon of hope to other startups in Buffalo.
And though dealflow hit a snag last year amid some concerning economic trends and predictions, like the Covid-19 pandemic, the community is determined to stay on the trajectory of the last decade.
Take a few of last year’s startups to watch, for example. Centivo, a health-benefits startup, raised $30 million and moved its headquarters into downtown Buffalo in 2022. HELIXintel, which helps companies track and maintain equipment and hosts a business-to-business marketplace for equipment purchases, closed last year on a $4 million seed funding round that will support its continued expansion across the country.
As always, criteria for the list is subjective. Our intention is to highlight some of the movers and shakers within the local startup scene and showcase what’s going on in that community.
Top Seedz
Rebecca Brady, CEO
The locally based cracker company expects to ramp up production by 600%, courtesy of its new headquarters and production space in downtown Buffalo. The 35,000-square-foot space at 101 Oak St., near Braymiller Market and the Central Library, is being renovated and CEO Rebecca Brady hopes to move in by mid-year.
That news comes on the heels of the startup announcing last year that it was rolling out its products to all 156 Giant supermarkets, building up its customer base that already included Wegmans Food Markets, Tops Friendly Markets and Whole Foods.
Top Seedz is the $1 million grand prize winner of 43North’s 2021 pitch competition. The business’ employs about 30, many of whom are refugees.
Viridi Parente
Jon Williams, CEO
Viridi Parente, which has developed lithium-ion battery storage packs, has had quite a busy few years and has big plans for the future. The business raised nearly $95 million in late 2021 and last year completed a $10 million renovation project that increased its occupied square footage by about 50,000 square feet.
That brings the company’s total square footage to roughly 180,000 of the available 850,000 at 1001 East Delevan Ave., Buffalo. CEO Jon Williams’ goal is to occupy the entire 42-acre campus.
The business is already planning its next expansion, which will include implementing automation technology to ramp up production. Viridi Parente already has more orders than it can make this year.
Currently, it takes the company about 30 labor hours to build a battery storage pack. With automation, it’ll take about 20 minutes.
Azuna Inc.
Scott Dancy, CEO
CEO Scott Dancy’s goal is to take over the cleaning market. Since launching Azuna Inc. in 2019, he’s taken steps to get there.
The business, which makes all-natural odor removal and cleaning products based on tea tree gel, raised a $3 million seed round last year. Funds will be used to market and create new products.
The startup was doing $200,000 in monthly revenue by the end of 2020 and sales doubled in 2021. Dancy told Business First in October that he expected revenue to triple in 2022 and the company to hit its first $1 million revenue month “very soon.”
Last year, Azuna launched a cleaning product for boats and partnered with Sandy Yawn, a boat captain on Bravo show "Below Deck," to promote the product.
Twipes
Ellenor McIntosh and Al Borz, co-founders
Twipes was sold on Buffalo even before the company was tapped to replace Agape Wellness Inc. as a 2022 43North contest winner. CEO Al Borz was already in the process of hiring an operations manager here and planned on using Buffalo as a base to launch Twipes sales in the U.S.
The London-based company has developed a material that can break down in water in three hours and biodegrade in a landfill in seven days. Last year, the business did just over $440,000 in sales in the United Kingdom.
Twipes expects to launch sales in America the first week of February on its website and plans to do the distribution and, starting fall 2023, manufacturing in Buffalo. Borz was especially drawn in by the area’s number of empty facilities ideal for manufacturing and the University at Buffalo’s “award-winning materials lab,” he said.
Agape Wellness Inc.
Kadie Okwudili, founder
Despite not joining the 43North cohort after all, Rochester-based Agape Wellness Inc. has the clout of winning a $1 million pitch contest prize.
The business’ app, which uses personalized questions to spark meaningful conversations, got a $75,000 Launch NY investment in 2020 and raised a $1.8 pre-seed round in 2021.
The app launched in November 2020 and went viral on Tik Tok, getting more than 100,000 installs within 48 hours. Though the team wasn’t prepared for the rapid growth and the program crashed, the company was able to leverage the momentum to get into Y Combinator, a Mountain View, California-based accelerator.
Agape has since rewritten the app and focused on growth. The startup has gone from $13,000 in gross revenue in May 2022 to $160,000 in September 2022, making it a profitable business.
EagleHawk
Patrick Walsh, CEO
This marks the first full year of EagleHawk building on its software tool, which gives the startup recurring revenue. The business initially provided drone inspections for customers with large campuses, especially colleges. But in April, the company added a product called elevateFM, designed to help customers use the data from the drone inspections.
As of September, the software had about a dozen paying subscribers and EagleHawk was in the process of hiring more staff.
The startup previously went through a legal dispute, where co-founder Willard Schulmeister, who was fired in early December 2021, refused to return company property and locked the company out of its social media accounts. EagleHawk filed suit in state Supreme Court and, after a judge’s order, the property was returned in January 2022.
In 2021, EagleHawk took in $700,000, with $500,000 coming from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the rest from local angel investors and Launch NY.
Bounce Imaging
Francisco Aguilar, CEO
Mark Fargason, COO
Lauren Baynes, vice president of operations
After initially setting out to raise $3 million in 2022, Bounce Imaging closed on about $6 million last year. The company, which develops 360-degree cameras that can be thrown into dangerous situations, raised funds in preparation for commercial-scale contracts in the emergency services and defense industries. The funding will help the business go from making hundreds of cameras to thousands.
Former 43North executive Lauren Baynes is vice president of operations. The Buffalo-based business has a handful of local employees.
In 2021, the startup landed a deal with U.S. Customs and Border Protection worth up to $15 million. The company also won a $500,000 runner-up prize in the 2017 version of the 43North contest.
AireXpert
Andy Hakes, founder and CEO
The timing is right for AireXpert to take off, according to founder Andy Hakes. He told Business First last year that airlines were beginning to stabilize following two years of pandemic-related disruption. During that process, there was a growing acceptance that digital tools can make their operations more efficient.
The business’ software manages the complex series of maintenance tasks that are required before commercial planes can take flight.
Over the last few years, regional airlines have become full customers and AireXpert had beta projects in the works with bigger accounts. Hakes is targeting some major U.S. and international airlines.
The startup got a $125,000 investment from Launch NY last year.
CaHill Tech
Carley Hill, founder
After being founded in 2019, CaHill Tech has been making moves. The business, which has developed a mobile training tool for companies and workers in the construction industry, was a 43North finalist last year and got into the Techstars Iowa accerator program.
The latter contributed $120,000 into the startup’s seed round, which totaled $1 million. As of October, the startup redid its website and expected to hire six workers over the following three months, bringing its team to 16 members. The business had 42 clients with a 100% retention rate.
The next steps for the company include working on translations and transcriptions in different languages to make the education more accessible and to use the seed funding for product development and sales and marketing.
CoachMePlus
Kevin Dawidowicz, president
CoachMePlus sees room to grow, especially in the fitness industry with the rise of hybrid exercise post-pandemic. The company uses technology and data to personalize fitness and enhance relationships between exercisers and coaches.
The startup last year closed a $1 million seed round and planned to use it to add a product marketing manager and digital marketing manager to target the fitness sector.
The business has had successes with government organizations. The company landed its first military contract back in 2017 and last year completed a U.S. Army Applications Laboratory pilot program where its technology was used at three separate military sites with a total of about 9,000 soldiers.
The startup has grown rapidly over the last few years, pulling about 6 million data points a month about two years ago and, as of late last year, was collecting roughly 37 million data points each month from 500,000 users.
