The 43North Foundation will spearhead an initiative to invest millions in the Buffalo tech startup ecosystem.
The foundation announced today Lightning Strike, a 10-year, $100 million initiative that will focus on four key areas to ensure the local ecosystem is ambitious, equitable and self-sustaining:
- Accelerate the development of the regional tech talent pipeline through supporting programs that introduce kids and adults of all ages to entrepreneurship and tech careers, as well as pushing to attract and retain college talent
- Start a venture studio that fosters more high-growth businesses through connecting promising ideas with a team that's experienced when it comes to building startups
- Engage the business community to expand corporate participation in tech through practical programming and hands-on learning
- Storytelling to share community successes locally and globally
“We’ve been working at this a long time and, like 43North, what we want to do is we want to set the agenda for those critical things that are going to be important over the next decade in sustaining the startup tech ecosystem that we along with others have built up to this point,” said Bill Maggio, who chairs the 43North Foundation board and is past chairman of 43North.
All four areas will launch this year, and plans include hiring a CEO of the venture studio and a CEO of the 43North Foundation.
Related: Analyzing 43North's portfolio companies and the work it has done
The funding amounts going into each of the four focus areas have not been finalized yet, according to Maggio. The collaborative efforts will include strategic partners, but he couldn't yet announce the partners or give more details of the initiative.
43North, a largely state-funded accelerator and incubator, created the 43North Foundation in 2021 to administer its proceeds from ACV Auctions' initial public offering, expected to be a windfall of tens of millions of dollars for 43North.
2022 tax filings, the latest documents publicly available, show the foundation had net assets or fund balances of about $47.25 million by year-end 2022. But the stock market today is very different than it was over a year ago. ACV’s stock price closed at $8.21 on Dec. 27, 2022. Since then, the price has risen, coming in at $15.15 as of market close Dec. 29, 2023. The price hit $17.81 as of market close May 3, 2024.
43North kicked off the application period for its 10th business competition last week. Winners will be named in the fall.
