Rochester’s Ovitz wins big on Luminate Demo Day

Ovitz is the winner of Round II of the Luminate competition, with $1 million in follow-on funding from the state. The Rochester company received top honors at Luminate’s “Light Tomorrow with Today” Demo Day competition, held in the main tent at the CGI International Jazz Festival in downtown Rochester.

Ovitz has developed an individualized, vision-enhancing contact lens innovation that significantly improves people’s vision quality: clarity, contrast, and depth perception. As required by the award, all winners of the competition will commit to establishing operations in Rochester for at least the next 18 months.

“Strategic investments in OPI-enabled technologies continue to bolster the Finger Lakes region’s reputation as the imaging capital of the world,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “The innovations and commitments demonstrated through the Luminate NY competition further prove the vast potential of this industry and its ability to move the regional economy forward for years to come.”

Other contest winners are:

• VPG Medical, also based in Rochester, was awarded the second-place prize of $500,000. Its HealthKam® technology uses smart devices and laptops to enable effortless, seamless cardiac monitoring to deliver improved diagnoses and therapeutic strategies

•  Lumedica Vision, based in North Carolina, was named third place winner, securing $250,000 for its OQ EyeScope technology, which provides a medical instrument for diagnosing retina disease that is easy to acquire, transport, and use in all optometry offices.

• Circle Optics, based in New York City, finished in fourth place for its proprietary technology that captures real-time, errorless, 360° video in 12K. The company also won the $10,000 Audience Choice award.

Investments today were presented after a panel of judges from the OPI industry and venture capitalist community scored Luminate companies based on their business pitches.

Luminate, administered by NextCorps, is the world’s largest business accelerator for startup firms in the optics, photonics and imaging OPI industries. The accelerator is based in Rochester and selects ten promising companies each year and provides comprehensive training and resources to advance their technologies and businesses. Applications are now being accepted for round III through Sept. 23, 2019.