Meet the five new 43North companies now headed to Buffalo:
https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/...t-winners.html
Next step for 43North winners – making their way to Buffalo:
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/n...17d6e899e.html
"David Lord was on a fishing trip for steelhead last fall in Fredonia with his old college roommate from Orchard Park when he first heard about 43North.
The CEO of Guidesly – a platform headquartered in Topsfield, Mass., that uses website tools to help connect fishing tour guides with new customers – had been thinking about fundraising for the company he started in 2020. So he investigated what the Buffalo-based startup accelerator and incubator was all about.
He liked what he found out, so Lord applied earlier this year with hopes of winning one of its five $1 million prizes.
And it paid off Thursday night when Guidesly was chosen as one of five winners to earn $1 million – in exchange for a 5% equity stake in their businesses – during the 43North finals at Shea’s Performing Arts Center.
“It’s a long process and a long week and there’s some great companies – ones that are doing some incredible things for society – so I feel honored right now,” Lord said. “This is a life-changing experience.”
Joining Guidesly in 43North’s ninth cohort will be KAV of Redwood City, Calif.; Kredit Academy of Miami; Stepwise of Cambridge, Mass.; and StoreCash of San Jose, Calif.
It’s one thing to compete for 43North’s $1 million prize; it’s quite another to win and have to pick up and leave one’s home to spend at least a year working and living in Buffalo. That’s the next challenge for these five companies – even before they can think about meeting more people and forming new relationships, growing and scaling their company and hiring new employees. Winners will be required to move to Buffalo by the end of the year.
And 43North, which provides resources, mentorship, guidance and space in its incubator, hopes to persuade the startups to remain in Buffalo beyond the one-year minimum, creating jobs and making investments in the region.
KAV CEO Whitman Kwok will need to move from California, but he welcomes the opportunity and plans to build a helmet manufacturing facility in Buffalo.
The move will provide his company – makers of custom helmets for cyclists and other recreational sports – with a location closer to the Canadian border and northeastern markets. It will cut down shipping costs and time, Kwok said. And the Silicon Valley-based brand founded in 2016 already works with a supplier only two hours away.
Kwok, a competitive cyclist who wanted to bring new technology to helmet making and help prevent head injuries and concussions, said he also likes to collaborate with local artists and businesses – potentially Stitch Buffalo, an embroidery workshop employing refugees – to help design and make the helmets.
“Part of what we’ll do is build around the community,” said Kwok, who first heard about 43North from owners of program alumnus Shearshare, Ty and Courtney Caldwell. “It’s not just about building the most advanced helmets in the world. We think of what we’re doing as more than that.”
KAV offers custom-fit, 3D-printed helmets also known for their sleek look and being well-ventilated and light, using polymer material, for improved aerodynamics. The company was recognized as one of Time magazine’s best inventions of 2022.
But it won’t be easy. KAV faces deep-pocketed competitors that already are well-established in the $6 billion bicycle helmet market.
“The (million dollars) will go toward the factory and employing locals, as well as marketing and branding and then continuing to develop the next generation of advanced helmets,” Kwok said. “The sky is the limit in how many people we’ll be able to hire.”
Kredit Academy also earned the $25,000 People’s Choice award, funded by Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and voted on by the audience at finals night. Kredit Academy is a financial literacy platform for Gen Z that emphasizes education in credit and spending.
CEO Evan Leaphart will have to move here from Miami, but after growing up in Pittsburgh, he said Buffalo resonates with him and his mission to bring credit education to underprivileged communities.
He said the company, which already has a credit union under contract and partnerships with Equifax and Discover, would potentially like to work with M&T Bank and other local partners to focus on assisting low- to moderate-income individuals around Buffalo.
Started in 2020, Kredit Academy offers credit-based solutions aimed at empowering consumers, particularly teens and young adults, with knowledge and tools to build sound credit, while also providing financial institutions an effective means of engagement and growth. It provides a credit card secured to a high-yield savings account, with parental oversight to ensure it is used properly. He said 90 million people are considered credit challenged.
“Being here is a great thing for us, and now we want to focus on our sales operation,” Leaphart said. “Now that we’re post-product on a lot of the things we’ve worked on. We can really just go ahead and execute on that. … It’s really about accelerating the growth strategy.”
Eight companies were in competition Thursday and made a final pitch to a group of five judges in front of 3,000 audience members. Fifteen semifinalists made their initial pitch the day prior, before 43North whittled the field down to eight.
The state-backed program is expected to continue spurring the growth of innovative new startups and help make Buffalo an example of a city building a growing tech and entrepreneurial scene.
The hope is that the winners continue to fuel the progress already being seen in Buffalo, said Mike Wisler, 43North chair, who is chief information officer at M&T Bank.
Stepwise, which provides home electrification for EV charger and heat pump installations, using a software-defined smart device installed on an electric panel, relishes moving to the state, CEO Jane Chen said.
New York has one of the most aggressive climate regulations of any state but one of the oldest housing stocks, according to Chen.
The company helps make home electrification cost-effective for homeowners – by 60% in savings up front – while futureproofing the electric grid. By monitoring the energy between the panel and charger, the new tech can access previously unused electric capacity.
“We should be optimizing what we already have in our homes,” said Chen, who anticipates investing in tech talent from the University at Buffalo and the Northland Workforce Training Center.
Her focus will be on hiring engineers as she plans to bring on five to 10 employees, while working with electricians to help spread awareness of the product.
“It’s hard to put a number on the jobs, but it will be impactful, I guarantee it,” she said.
StoreCash CEO Daricus Releford would like to hire seven people in Buffalo – something he would have a hard time doing in his current location in California.
StoreCash is a mobile payment solution for users to pay via QR codes at more than 200,000 locations, with customers earning cash back at the stores.
The company has 51,000 registered users and is looking to reach about 250,000 users. It already partners with 400-plus stores.
“We need to expand our employees and the problem with being in California is everything is very expensive,” Releford said.
For Lord, who is 58, the move won’t change his life too drastically.
“One of the joys of being a little older is that I’m an empty nester and my wife and I are pretty flexible and can move,” he said.
He’ll first focus on moving the company’s product team to Buffalo and start meeting and building relationships with tour guides. With the money, the company will work on its go-to market strategy and then consider how and when to hire.
There’s plenty of synergy for the company being around the Great Lakes in upstate New York and close to the Canadian border – all areas known for recreational outdoor activities and top-notch fisheries. In fact, the Great Lakes ranks as the No. 5 fishery in the country.
Lord would like to expand into several other segments in the outdoor recreational guide marketplace – 80% of which does not yet offer online booking, he said.
“When guides want to come to your platform, you don’t want to put up any roadblocks,” Lord said."
Buffalo startup Offerwell raises funds on way to Rochester, Syracuse:
https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/...expansion.html
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