Three Ithaca startups developing technologies aimed at fighting agricultural frost, improving food testing and replacing plastic-based packaging coatings are among 20 companies selected to compete for $3 million through New York’s Grow-NY food and agriculture competition.
CryoBio, Quantera Analytical and RETRN Bioworks Inc. will spend the next several weeks preparing for the Grow-NY Summit in Rochester, where seven finalists will receive investments ranging from $250,000 to $1 million. The competition drew more than 330 applications from 49 countries and 32 states this year, according to Empire State Development.
CryoBio is developing technology designed to provide farmers with a more effective and affordable way to protect crops from frost. The Ithaca company says agricultural frost is an increasingly costly threat and estimates global losses associated with it at roughly $50 billion annually.
Quantera Analytical is focused on food testing. The company is developing a field-deployable platform intended to make testing for trace levels of chemicals in food faster, less expensive and more accessible than existing methods.
RETRN Bioworks is working on a bio-based polymer barrier coating for fiber food packaging. The company says its coating can be customized for packaging manufacturers while remaining home compostable, marine biodegradable and recyclable.
The Ithaca companies represent three of four finalists based within the broader 22-county Grow-NY region. OrganoTech LLC of Syracuse was also selected. Its technology recovers phosphorus from wastewater and dairy digestate, with the goal of helping facilities meet discharge requirements while producing organic fertilizer.
The competition is administered by Cornell University’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement and supported by Empire State Development. Companies selected as finalists are required to commit to growing jobs, partnerships or operations within the Grow-NY region, which includes parts of the Finger Lakes, Central New York and Southern Tier.
Over the next 10 weeks, finalists will receive mentorship, develop regional growth plans, meet potential partners and investors and explore possible locations for future operations.
The process will culminate Nov. 12 and 13 at the Grow-NY Summit in Rochester. One company will receive a $1 million investment, two will receive $500,000 each and four will receive $250,000 each.
That means seven of the 20 finalists will ultimately receive funding.
The field includes companies from across the United States as well as Canada and the Netherlands. Technologies represented among this year’s finalists range from autonomous farming robots and precision fertilizer systems to methane reduction, livestock cooling, pathogen detection and food supply-chain tracking.
More than 40 judges reviewed this year’s applicants. Empire State Development said 96 applications came from New York, while 46% of applicants were women-founded businesses and 69% included founders from underrepresented minority groups.
Agricultural technology remained a major part of the applicant pool, with 89 applications in digital agriculture. Food technology applications increased from 50 last year to 79 this year.
Grow-NY launched in 2019 as part of New York’s Upstate economic development programs. State officials say 49 winning companies from the competition’s first seven rounds have created nearly 330 jobs and raised more than $127 million in additional funding. Forty of those companies remain operating in New York.
The program’s structure is intended to do more than finance individual startups. By requiring winners to establish or expand operations within the Grow-NY region, state economic development officials are seeking to turn the competition into a pipeline for new companies, investment and agricultural technology jobs across Upstate New York.
For the three Ithaca finalists, the next phase will determine whether technologies already being developed in the Finger Lakes can capture a share of that investment and expand their presence in the region.
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