Eric Reich already has one notch on his belt as a startup investor: investing in ACV Auctions.
Now Reich – co-founder and longtime leader of Campus Labs, one of the region’s first successful startups – is looking to plant another fast-growing startup tree in Buffalo.
Reich and his Campus Labs co-founder, Michael Weisman, were the main private investors in a $1 million seed round raised by BetterMynd. Weisman is joining the company full time as vice president of sales, while Reich is a board member.
It’s a business opportunity, for sure. But it’s also a symbol of a widely held belief that has driven a lot of regional decision-making this past decade, whether it’s government or private sector. The idea is that investment-fueled, scalable tech startups like Campus Labs (which still has a sizable employee base and office in Buffalo, but is now called Anthology) end up having an outsized economic impact if they’re successful.
That’s because participants in the first journey sign up to do it again. Theoretically.
“This is the kind of ecosystem progress we all want to see and validates the work that’s been accomplished to this point,” Reich said. “New emerging companies sprouting out of established players can create more jobs and opportunities for our region.”
The Campus Labs model goes beyond Reich, who chairs the Western New York Economic Development Council, is a 43North board member and plays an active role in high-level business attraction efforts in Buffalo.
BetterMynd, an ed-tech firm focused on colleges and universities like Campus Labs, also hired a handful of Campus Labs employees to form its early team. Weisman, who now lives in San Diego, has become a key investor in Buffalo-based payments startup Verivend. And Robert Willer, former Campus Labs VP of technology and operations, is now chief technology officer at ed-tech startup Kangarootime, which is based in Buffalo.
Campus Labs isn’t the only relevant example. Liazon Corp. and Synacor were among the triumvirate of successful Buffalo tech startups from 2000 to 2015, and both have had major spinoff impacts. Liazon co-founder Ashok Subramanian also became an ACV investor, but perhaps most importantly, named Buffalo as the headquarters of his new startup, Centivo, which has already raised more than $100 million in venture capital.
The previously mentioned Verivend is led by former Liazon and ACV technology and operations leaders.
And ACV itself, which went public in March 2021, is led now by Synacor co-founder George Chamoun.
In the meantime, two of ACV’s co-founders have become active angel investors in Buffalo. Jack Greco’s portfolio now includes more than 80 startup companies and contributions to a handful of venture capital funds, and Dan Magnuszewskimremains with ACV but has popped up as an investor recently in companies such as Flox and Zealot Interactive.
If it seems like an impossible-to-follow lineage of business connections, that’s kind of the point.
“Michael and I, we know higher education really well, and it’s a market where you really need to understand the dynamics in order to be successful,” Reich said. “It made for a unique opportunity for all of us.”
