Upstate New York A Year Later

A year ago I spent two days in Upstate New York meeting with a bunch of folks working in and around the entrepreneurial community at the request of my long time friend Martin Babinec and his partner Nasir Ali. I wrote a summary post titled Two Days of Entrepreneurial Community Building In Upstate New York.

Today I noticed a post titled Early spring for Upstate NY entrepreneurs on the StartFast Venture Accelerator site (Martin and Nasir’s accelerator that is a member of the Global Accelerator Network.) I thought it was a good summary of what’s going on right now in the region and asked if I could republish it. The post follows!

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2012 is shaping up to be a great year for our entrepreneurs with lots of events to attend and successes to celebrate.

EXITS:  Hot on the heels of recent exits for Sensis (Syracuse), Kionix (Ithaca), and Paetec(Rochester), Buffalo-based Synacor debuted on the NASDAQ this past week, creating liquidity for two of the region’s early stage investors: Rand Capital and Advantage Capital.

FINANCINGS:  The Seed Capital Fund of CNY (a StartFast investor) reports that four portfolio companies are expected to close about $7MM in new funding this quarter.  In addition to SCF, participating investors include Cayuga Venture Fund, Rand Capital, Eastern NY Angels and several out of state angels/VCs.

STARTUP WEEKENDS:  Last November’s sold out events in Ithaca and Syracuse showed just how much talent is locked up in our region and the many serial entrepreneurs who are ready to mentor a new generation of startups.  This year promises at least four to six more such events, beginning with Albany in March and Rochester in April.

MEETUPS: Just a year after its launch, the Syracuse Tech Meetup group continues to grow in size and popularity, drawing hundreds of attendees.  The next meetup is February 28 and offers startups a chance to meet organizers and mentors from the StartFast and Student Sandbox accelerators.

Subscribe to the Upstate Venture Connect calendar via RSS to stay in the loop on future events.