It's been just over a year since I began exclusively covering Pittsburgh's budding tech and innovation ecosystem. And what a year it has been.
Some of the region's smallest firms have seen nothing but huge growth in customers and employees during this time. For others, it has been a year marked by gigantic funding deals capable of turning any local startup into a national player.
At times I've found myself wondering how what I perceive as momentum is just a result of me getting caught up to speed with the beat. After all, I went from covering general interest business news in Pittsburgh to a position that has me fully immersed in telling the stories of people and businesses propelling our region forward and into frontiers that have only just begun to emerge.
But there's also little room to deny that Pittsburgh's status as a serious contender in the national and even global tech scene is growing. The region's low cost of living mixed with its highly educated workforce and its thoughts leaders who can look at the ordinary and see a need for change make it a good spot to grow a company. And grow they have done, with over the past year alone, the area seeing successes it hasn't seen in recent years, including two big initial public offerings, several huge fundraising rounds and key acquisitions as indications that Pittsburgh's startups are truly gaining momentum.
Like I said, it has been quite the year, one that has also had me learn about everything a region requires to have a viable startup community.
First, any successful innovation ecosystem needs its startup founders, people who are willing to break away from the safety of an employer and the benefits that come with it to go out and launch a venture of their own. That requires a set of skills and confidence that isn't common in the general population. Startup founders pursue their passions regardless of not having certainties like a consistent paycheck, health care benefits and guaranteed vacation time.
Getting help along the way can make all the difference, though, and Pittsburgh has no shortage of people who want to support the region's startup founders. From venture capitalists backing these budding businesses to community organizers offering networking opportunities for anyone who will show up, Pittsburgh is a city filled with people who are working to make the startup community thrive.
The Fire Awards celebrate all these efforts and accomplishments over the past year. It's Pittsburgh Inno's signature recognition program that proudly declares the region as a place for entrepreneurial excellence.
In order to determine the honorees, Pittsburgh Inno sought nominations from the public as well as suggestions from its editorial team. Collectively, the publication's editorial board determined this year’s 23 honorees, which range from growth-stage startups to unicorn tech titans. Winners are grouped into four categories: Rising founders, ecosystem advocates, top funding rounds and exits of the year.
And our Career Achievement Award, a staple of the Pittsburgh Business Times' award programs, goes to Rich Lunak, president and CEO of Innovation Works Inc. Lunak, who is retiring by the end of the year, is an entrepreneur-turned-advocate who has been instrumental in helping to create a strong ecosystem for startups here.
Lunak, along with the other honorees, will be celebrated during an event at The Assembly in Bloomfield on Sept. 15 (there's still time to register to attend!) and in a special edition of the Pittsburgh Business Times on Sept. 16.
Below, read all about this year’s honorees.
Check back throughout the week to read profiles of the winners as they are announced and links are added.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Career Achievement winner:
Rich Lunak, Innovation Works Inc.
Rising Founders:
Founders are the core of any startup community, and Pittsburgh has seen significant growth in the number of entrepreneurs looking to leave behind the traditional benefits of employment in hopes of working for themselves. Here Pittsburgh Inno names a few founders who have started to see the fruits of such efforts. These pioneers are always looking for mileposts that signal more rapid growth, successful funding round raises or expansion of their employee payrolls. The local startup community depends on people like them as they drive innovation in a number of different ways.
Joe Cardosi, Free Market Health
Jessica Gibson, Ariel Precision Medicine
Ecosystem Advocates:
Innovation requires people, their ideas and capital to bring them to life. But it also needs cheerleaders to support the environment in which ventures can thrive. For that reason, Pittsburgh Inno is naming Ecosystem Advocates in this year’s inaugural Fire Awards. Success can be measured in how many talented people a venture brings to its workforce, how innovative its products and/or services are, how much capital it attracts and how well the enterprise addresses problems that others have been looking to solve. Ecosystem Advocates are there to help guide founders along those paths. The six advocates named here are taking their own approaches to mentorship, but they all measure their own success by what their mentees accomplish.
Jennifer Apicella, Pittsburgh Robotics Network
Kelley Benson, Innovation Works Inc.
Ilana Diamond, 412 Venture Fund
Matt Harbaugh, Mountain State Capital
Dave Mawhinney, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University
Top Funding Rounds:
Building and launching a tech startup doesn’t come cheap. Many companies pursue outside investment in exchange for equity in their promising firm. That infusion of capital allows them to hire more employees, build prototypes and scale their business to meet the needs of a growing customer base. Tracking funding rounds helps paint a picture of a dynamic startup ecosystem. These are the largest funding rounds scored by Pittsburgh-based startups between July 2021 and June 2022.
Gecko Robotics Inc., raised $73M
Roadrunner Recycling Inc, raised $70M
Watt Fuel Cell Corp., raised $67M
ForAllSecure Inc., raised $21M
Exits of the Year:
An important marker of a region’s startup scene is its founders and funders seeing a return on their efforts via a significant exit. At their core, strong exits are a validation of all the work entrepreneurs have put into bringing their ideas to life. Ventures can be monetized through an acquisition by another company or when they debut on a public stock exchange. Both routes bring capital back into the region, which many startup founders and investors use to launch new ventures of their own or to serve as initial investors for other startups looking to replicate that success. And just as much as exits yield cash infusions, they provide a proof of concept for the region. These are some of the most significant exits for Pittsburgh-based companies from July 2021 to June 2022.
