Just a one year after Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest Tour rolled through Buffalo, we are proud to be participating in a Steve Case-supported Village Capital (VilCap) accelerator program - sponsored by Rise of the Rest, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and the Sorenson Impact Center — which will help biomedical companies in Western New York.
The new program, Critical Path Life Science Accelerator, will provide 11 companies world-class mentoring, networking and venture capital to startups.
Critical Path companies will receive mentorship in finance issues, intellectual property, U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, commercialization strategies, fundraising, investor relations, and sales and marketing. Companies will use a peer-selection process to provide each other with feedback on their businesses and to choose two companies that each will receive a $50,000 investment from the Launch NY Seed Fund at the program’s conclusion.
The 11 Critical Path companies are:
Abcombi Biosciences, Inc., Buffalo, aims to provide universally-protective vaccines for complex diseases such a pneumonia and strep throat.
AccuTheranostics, Inc., Buffalo, developed ChemoFit , a specialized chemo sensitive/chemo resistance assay using a patient's own tumor cells in a laboratory to identify which drugs have the most, and the least, potential for treating patient's unique cancer.
Coqui3D, Inc., Buffalo, is building a virtual reality surgical simulator platform connected to big data.
Disease Diagnostic Group, Inc., Buffalo, focuses on screening, tracking, and diagnosing highly infectious diseases in the developing world through portable and reusable devices.
Efferent Labs, Inc., Buffalo, is a medical technology company developing biosensor systems.
Garwood Medical Devices, LLC, Buffalo, is a medical device company developing a new class of programmable electrical stimulation devices with integrated sensor and communications technologies, enabling monitoring and treatment for wound healing, bone growth and per-prosthetic (implant) infections, enhancing quality-of-life by improving patient mobility and decreasing clinician intervention.
Infonaut, Inc., Buffalo, is a health care information technology and analytics company that solves the global challenge of deadly hospital infections with its IBM Watson-enabled solution.
Ionica Sciences, Inc., Ithaca, is focused on the commercialization of in vitro diagnostics platform for difficult to diagnose infectious disease by exploiting the sensitivity of Raman spectroscopy and the selectivity of DNA aptamers.
Motion Intelligence, Inc., Syracuse, works with top academic institutions, medical researchers and engineers to translate breakthrough findings into thoughtfully developed and scientifically sound assessment applications.
Nidus Biosciences, LLC, Rochester, is an early-stage University of Rochester biotechnology spinout formed to commercialize its patented microbubble array platform technology of arrays of nanoliter-capacity microbubble cavities for advanced methods of cell-growth and screening, particularly growth and screening of single and few cells for development and validation of new biologics.
POP Biotechnologies, LLC, Buffalo, is a life sciences company committed to improving the health of individuals with next-generation nanomedicine solutions.
Critical Path is a collaborative of the University at Buffalo, Launch NY, Invest Buffalo Niagara, Western New York Incubator Network and sponsored by National Grid, U.S. Small Business Administration, and Colligan Law LLP.