Empire State Development (ESD)-supported program will award $410,000 to startups to bring their technologies closer to market
(Albany, NY – September 25, 2025) — FuzeHub is excited to announce the finalists for its ninth annual Commercialization Competition, to be held October 29-30, 2025, at the Joseph A. Floreano Rochester Riverside Convention Center. The Commercialization Competition takes place yearly as part of the ESD-supported FuzeHub Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund. During the competition, twelve entrepreneurs from across New York State will present their business plans before a panel of judges and a live audience. Two companies will each receive $80,000 in funding. Additionally, the runner-up will be awarded $100,000, and the grand award winner will take home $150,000.
The New York State Innovation Summit celebrates New York State companies and researchers at the forefront of emerging technologies and new advancements in production capabilities. This event celebrates New York State leadership in technology-led economic growth with experts in biotechnology, new materials, energy innovation, and artificial intelligence that will explore current technology convergence opportunities, ways to accelerate commercialization, and issues of manufacturing sustainability.
During the Summit, finalists will demonstrate the commercialization potential of their product or technology and compete against each other for one out of four awards. Award funds must be used to improve an existing prototype or go-to-market strategy, enabling the company to pursue additional investments and customers, and leading to the successful commercialization of their product.
“The Commercialization Competition is a vital part of New York State’s innovation ecosystem. We’ve seen, year in and year out, the impact that the Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund can make for entrepreneurs and their early-stage technologies,” said Ben Verschueren, executive director of Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR). “The platform itself can also be transformative. All this year’s finalists will have a chance not just to earn an influx of capital, but to impress an audience of researchers, technologists and potential investors at the Innovation Summit. I’m eager to see which of these deserving projects rise to the top.”
“This competition is more than a pitch event. It is a catalyst for visionaries to turn bold ideas into real products,” said Patty Rechberger, Innovation Fund Manager at FuzeHub. “Every year, we see founders tackling incredibly complex challenges, from creating sustainability to prototyping life changing medical devices. New York’s future is being built in these workspaces and labs, and we are proud to help these entrepreneurs move from concept to commercialization.”
This event creates numerous opportunities to learn, connect with entrepreneurs, potential customers, investors, and support service professionals, and see how FuzeHub continues to spur technology development and commercialization across New York State. Registration is still open, and full agenda details are available on the Innovation Summit’s website.
Watch the video announcement here.
FuzeHub is pleased to announce the finalists:
Mission-Driven Tech, Inc. (Long Island)
Modern Brachytherapy by Mission-Driven Tech
If a woman is diagnosed with Cervical Cancer today, she is just as likely to die from the disease as she would have in 1970. Brachytherapy (internal radiation) cures Cervical Cancer, but up to 40% of patients decline or drop out from treatment as a result of painful and brutalizing procedures performed with medical devices designed in the 1970s. Mission-Driven Tech is a Cervical Cancer innovation company laser-focused on improving these stagnant diagnosis outcomes. Founded by Eve McDavid, a former Google executive and cervical cancer survivor, MDT’s first product suite is Modern Brachytherapy: a new medical device applicator and wrap-around treatment planning system that offers superior dose plan quality and safer, less painful procedures. This means more radiation towards the tumor, while keeping surrounding healthy tissue and organs less affected.
Emboa Medical (Capital Region)
Biomimetic Thrombectomy Catheter
Emboa Medical is revolutionizing stroke care with a next-generation catheter designed to more effectively remove life-threatening blood clots from the brain. The device features an internal gripping surface that helps doctors extract clots traditional tools often leave behind, especially in narrow or hard-to-reach vessels. Used by stroke specialists in hospital procedures, Emboa’s technology could dramatically reduce treatment time and improve recovery. In one case, a clot that resisted standard methods was removed on the first try using Emboa’s approach, helping the patient regain speech within hours. This breakthrough offers new hope for faster, safer stroke intervention.
Arbour Group LLC_Liquid Wall (NYC)
LIQUID WALL – Ultra-High-Performance Concrete Building Facades
Liquid Wall is a first-of-a-kind prefabricated building envelope that offers unparalleled design versatility through its innovative use of form-cast Ultra-High-Performance Concrete. By replacing the traditional facade materials of aluminum framing and standard precast concrete, their patented technology directly impacts costly problems building owners now face: operational energy cost, lifecycle and maintenance cost, and embodied carbon emissions. Liquid Wall provides superior thermal performance, reducing heating and cooling costs by 40%; extreme durability, with a service life of more than 100 years; and contains 75% less embodied carbon per unit than aluminum or precast concrete facades. The modular Liquid Wall is a drop-in facade solution to the existing construction market, designed for installation using existing rapid-construction methods. Liquid Wall meets the needs of asset owners, contractors, and architects grappling with the demands of the contemporary construction market.
TunaBotics LLC (Central New York)
Soft Shell Grippers To Accelerate Automation In Advanced Manufacturing
TunaBotics has created a new kind of soft robotic gripper that can pick up small, lightweight, delicate, and curved objects that cannot be safely and reliably handled using existing grippers. These patented soft-shell grippers use low pressure to control how strongly they stick to objects, allowing for a firm grip that can be gently released. Because they require only a small, portable pressure source like a micro-pump, they avoid the need for bulky, energy-intensive vacuum systems. This technology is especially valuable in electronics assembly, where human workers still handle various components by hand. A gripper from TunaBotics can allow for automation of these tasks.
REEgen (Southern Tier)
BioREEcovery Scale Up
New York based startup REEgen is supporting the ex-China supply chain for rare earth elements and other critical metals by replacing the most hazardous manufacturing steps with clean, bio-based processes. Through innovative genetic engineering approaches, the company has built a rare earth biomanufacturing platform that enables recovery of critical metals from a variety of feedstocks, including waste and recycled materials, helping to abate landfills and offset disposal costs. Through this approach, REEgen aims to create a circular and secure economy for rare earth and critical metal production in the United States. REEgen is currently scaling its BioREEcovery process to produce hundreds of tons of rare earth oxalates per year.
Intelligent Surgical Solutions Inc (Finger Lakes)
PneumoSeal – surgical device for use in hysterectomies
Intelligent Surgical Solutions is advancing women’s health through an innovative surgical device platform that was conceived by the co-founder, Dr. Madonna Tomani. The beachfront product, PneumoSeal, was born out of necessity for safer and more effective devices for hysterectomies. PneumoSeal solves a common challenge in hysterectomies: it helps seal the CO2 gas used to inflate the abdomen for visibility and access, while allowing surgical instruments to pass through. Current methods provide limited access to the surgical site, prolonging the procedure, elevating patient risk, and extending recovery time. The PneumoSeal Commercialization Project will bring to market a game-changing, noninvasive solution for hysterectomies, improving patient recovery and reducing procedure time and cost. It’s a leap forward for women’s health!
GynStrong, Inc. (Mid-Hudson)
Tamicap: A Pelvic Pain Relief Device
GynStrong, a pioneering women’s health and wellness company dedicated to developing advanced therapeutic solutions, is developing a non-invasive, user-friendly device to alleviate pelvic pain caused by endometriosis, adenomyosis, and dysmenorrhea, conditions that affect 32% of the women population. Tamicap can be used at home and controlled with a phone app.
Moby Filters (New York City)
Moby Filters
Moby Filters is a clean-tech startup tackling the global crisis of microplastic pollution. Developed out of Columbia University and backed by Techstars, Moby has created an advanced filtration system that captures and reuses toxic microplastics shed from textiles during industrial washing and manufacturing. These harmful particles often slip through traditional treatment systems and pollute our water, food, and bodies. Moby’s plug-and-play solution helps businesses reduce costs, meet environmental regulations, and protect public health—all while building a cleaner, circular future for water.
IVSonance Biomedical Inc. (Southern Tier)
IVSonance: Hands-Free Acoustic Automation of IVF Within Everyone’s Reach
The field of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is at a crossroads, with rapidly growing global demand straining against laboratory procedures that are manual, laborious, and difficult to scale. IVSonance, a company developed at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine, directly addresses this challenge with a transformative technology designed for the future of fertility care. This novel technology is built on the powerful principle of moving objects without touching them, using gentle acoustic waves to handle and prepare eggs for fertilization. In a fertility clinic, this automates the delicate egg cleaning process, making it faster, highly consistent, and finally scalable to meet rising demand. By solving this critical bottleneck, IVSonance is paving the way for the entire IVF industry to expand its reach and better serve the growing number of hopeful parents worldwide.
CryoBio, Inc. (Southern Tier)
An affordable and effective solution to fight frost in agriculture
New York farmers are facing major increases in frost damage over the last 10 years, with some losing about 90% of their crops to a late frost in 2023, pushing many to the verge of bankruptcy. This is not just a local issue; it is a growing global disaster that is worsening due to climate change and can destroy about 5% of the world’s food supply each year. Protecting crops from frost could increase global farmers’ incomes by over $50 billion and help feed 200 million more people. CryoBio is developing a one-of-a-kind spray solution that uses natural biochemicals to prevent ice formation on crops even under the worst frost conditions. This innovative solution contrasts with current methods like fans, heaters, or fires, which are costly, perform poorly, and difficult to use. The successful development of our technology will save tens of millions of dollars for NY farmers and provide the only affordable and effective solution for about 95% of affected growers worldwide.
Reflex Technologies LLC (Mohawk Valley)
Smart Factories with Real-Time Telemetry
Reflex Technologies transforms decades of trapped manufacturing data into real-time dashboards. The Utica-based company unlocks historical data from 1980s systems, creating the digital foundation needed for IoT sensors that monitor equipment, inventory, and production lines in real-time. For one Syracuse manufacturer, Reflex turned a manual reporting process from 3 hours per week to less than 3 seconds, generating thousands in new revenue while establishing the foundation for live monitoring. With Reflex, manufacturers can add devices incrementally – operations continue running while each new sensor enhances visibility into production. For the first time, this combination of telemetry, real-time updates, and continuous deployment transforms local manufacturing plants into smart factories that only Fortune 500 companies have had until now.
BuzzHive LLC (Southern Tier)
BuzzHive: AI-Driven Beehive Management System for Sustainable Beekeeping
The BuzzHive is a smart beehive enabled with IoT sensors and connected to a web-based app, allowing beekeepers to understand the health of their hives and alert beekeepers of impending threats by utilizing artificial intelligence. The BuzzHive monitors and alerts real time on the presence of conditions including varroa mite detection, mold inducing intra-hive conditions, and accurate honey storage analysis to forecast overwintering survival. The BuzzHive proposes to accomplish this with a suite of temperature, humidity, and weight readings supplemented with advanced acoustic/ vibrational signals between bees which will be used to train predictive and analytical machine learning models. With the future deployment of a vast BuzzHive network across the United States, a new database of pollinator specific data will enable the enhancement of future research and push boundaries in the United States to be a leader in pollinator preservation research.
The Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund, consisting of over $1 million annually, supports a set of activities designed to spur technology development and commercialization across New York State. FuzeHub is administering this fund as part of its role as the Empire State Development designated statewide MEP center. For more information about the Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund, contact Patty Rechberger, Innovation Fund Manager, at [email protected] or visit Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund.
About Jeff Lawrence
During his more than 20 years at the Center for Economic Growth, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) affiliate in the Capital Region where he served as executive vice-president and MEP center director, Jeff Lawrence directed programs of direct assistance to manufacturers and technology companies to increase their competitiveness. He is remembered for being an invaluable and generous mentor to many in the area’s business community and a tireless advocate for manufacturing innovation throughout New York.
About FuzeHub
FuzeHub is a not-for-profit organization that connects New York’s small and mid-sized manufacturing companies to the resources, programs, and expertise they need for technology commercialization, innovation, and business growth. Through our custom assessment, matching, and referral platform, we help companies navigate New York’s robust network of industry experts at Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers, universities, economic development organizations, and other providers. FuzeHub is the statewide New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program (MEP) center, supported by Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology & Innovation (NYSTAR).
About Empire State Development
Empire State Development (ESD) is New York’s chief economic development agency. The mission of ESD is to promote a vigorous and growing economy, encourage the creation of new job and economic opportunities, increase revenues to the State and its municipalities, and achieve stable and diversified local economies. Through the use of loans, grants, tax credits and other forms of financial assistance, ESD strives to enhance private business investment and growth to spur job creation and support prosperous communities across New York State. ESD is also the primary administrative agency overseeing the Regional Economic Development Councils and the marketing of “I LOVE NY,” the State’s iconic tourism brand. For more information on Regional Councils and Empire State Development, visit www.regionalcouncils.ny.gov and www.esd.ny.gov.