Luminate NY names winners of second cohort
Ten companies have been chosen to participate in the second cohort of New York State’s Luminate NY accelerator program in Rochester.
The finalists include optics, photonics and imaging startups who were selected after pitching their innovative ideas to an advisory panel of industry experts. Each company will receive an initial investment of $100,000 and will be a part of Luminate’s second cohort, which will launch in January 2019 at the Sibley building in downtown Rochester.
The six-month program will assist the companies with their ideas to accelerate their commercialization. The teams will then compete on Demo Day, where they will vie for $2 million in follow-on funding. Funding for the $10 million program is being provided through the Finger Lakes Forward Upstate Revitalization Initiative award and is being administered by NextCorps.
The competition received interest from more than 70 applicants from around the world including companies in Sweden, India, Canada, Australia, Russia and New Zealand. Sixteen companies from New York State applied, with the remaining coming from U.S. cities including tech hubs like Boston and San Francisc
Here are the 10 companies in the second cohort:
- Augmentiqs- Misgav, Israel
- Circle Optics- New York, NY
- Kura Tech- San Francisco, CA
- Lumedica Vision- Durham, NC
- Mango teQ LTD- Auckland, New Zealand
- Neurescence- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Opalux- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- The Organic Robotics Lab- Syracuse, NY
- Ovitz- Rochester, NY
- VPG Medical, Inc.- Rochester, NY