CenterState CEO expands Tech Garden to AXA Tower

SYRACUSE — CenterState CEO and Syracuse University (SU) have had a long-time partnership in developing and supporting collaborations to help drive economic development, growth, and support SU’s academic mission.

That’s according to Liz Liddy, interim vice chancellor and provost at Syracuse University.

A “key” part of the effort is “supporting innovation and enhancing opportunities” for students and startups to develop their ideas into marketable businesses, said Liddy. “The expansion of the … Syracuse Tech Garden represents another step in that effort.”

She noted as an example, the Syracuse Student Sandbox, an incubator that the Tech Garden houses to help young entrepreneurs advance their ventures from an idea to a company. 

Liddy made her remarks on Feb. 2 as CenterState CEO formally opened the Tech Garden II on the ground floor of AXA Tower Two at 120 Madison St. in downtown Syracuse.

The more than 18,000-square-foot space is an expansion of the Tech Garden, which operates in a 33,000-square-foot space at 235 Harrison St., adjacent to the AXA Towers.

CenterState CEO said it pursued the expansion in response to the “demand for space and innovation programming.’

“That ability to start and nurture and grow business is fundamental to the success of any economy and that is the singular mission for the Syracuse Technology 

Garden,” Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO, said in his remarks to begin the formal opening event. 

The Tech Garden II, which “soft launched” last October, is home to six tenants. They include M.A. Polce Consulting, Inc., a Rome–based computer consultant; VentureTechnica, a company offering custom-technology products; tuzag, Inc., a digital-advertising technology company; Lake Effect Applications, a gaming-application developer; TangoSquared LLC, a firm specializing in branding and marketing-communication design; and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Clean Tech Center.

“Both [Tech Garden] buildings function identically. Tenants can flow through both,” Seth Mulligan, vice president of innovation service at CenterState CEO, said 

during his talk at the event.

CenterState CEO, the region’s primary economic-development organization, represents 2,000 members in a 12-county area of Central New York.

The Tech Garden II, a $200,000 expansion, will support the collaborative efforts between CenterState CEO, the Tech Garden, and Syracuse University.

National Grid provided an additional $50,000 to help with the build-out.

The Tech Garden for the last two years has operated at “maximum physical capacity,” currently supporting 70 companies with more than 175 employees, according to a CenterState CEO news release.

The Tech Garden operates with about a $1.8 million total annual budget, with about 80 percent of that being grant funding and other outside funds that “pass through” to the startups and entrepreneurs it helps, according to Mulligan. Four full-time employees staff it. 

New York recently selected the Tech Garden as one of the first five New York State Innovation Hot Spots, a program that provides startup companies sales and income-tax relief “with the ability to grow into START-UP NY space,” according to CenterState CEO.

Grants for Growth

CenterState CEO also used the Feb. 2 event to announce $425,000 in Grants for Growth to seven companies.

The awards included $150,000 “concept to marketplace” investments for tuzag, Inc. and Skinny Eats, LLC, which will expand into a new specialty food manufacturing facility in Binghamton.

Tuzag has developed an “evolutionary” technology and methodology for making digital advertising better for both consumers and brands through an “anonymous, tailored advertising ecosystem,” Dave Bulger, company CEO, said at the event.

“Think eHarmony for ads,” he quipped.

Santa Monica, California–based eHarmony is a relationship website that uses a “compatibility matching system” to send members potential matches. 

With the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and School of Information Studies at Syracuse University; a “concentration of nationally regarded” advertising agencies; and “abundant” access to talent, Central New York seems “ideal” for an advertising-technology startup like tuzag, Bulger contended.

“However, if it wasn’t for Seth [Mulligan], the Grants for Growth program, the Tech Garden, and its designation as a Central New York Innovation Hotspot, I would not have been able to launch tuzag in Syracuse,” he added.

Starting any company is “fraught with peril,” Bulger noted, but trying to start a company in an area without pre-revenue resources is “merely an expedient way to burn through your life savings.”

Besides the “concept to marketplace” awards, the funding also includes $25,000 “proof of concept” grants to Solstice Power, which will construct a field-test prototype of its Solstice hybrid system. 

Its hybrid system is a “new solar technology that produces three times the electrical-energy efficiency of traditional flat solar panels and generates both electricity and heat from a single system,” according to CenterState CEO.

In addition, Ichor Therapeutics, Gyro Heat Technologies, Azeer Intimates, and Gridstream also secured “proof of concept” grants.

SYRACUSE — CenterState CEO and Syracuse University (SU) have had a long-time partnership in developing and supporting collaborations to help drive economic development, growth, and support SU’s academic mission.

That’s according to Liz Liddy, interim vice chancellor and provost at Syracuse University.

A “key” part of the effort is “supporting innovation and enhancing opportunities” for students and startups to develop their ideas into marketable businesses, said Liddy. “The expansion of the … Syracuse Tech Garden represents another step in that effort.”

She noted as an example, the Syracuse Student Sandbox, an incubator that the Tech Garden houses to help young entrepreneurs advance their ventures from an idea to a company. 

Liddy made her remarks on Feb. 2 as CenterState CEO formally opened the Tech Garden II on the ground floor of AXA Tower Two at 120 Madison St. in downtown Syracuse.

The more than 18,000-square-foot space is an expansion of the Tech Garden, which operates in a 33,000-square-foot space at 235 Harrison St., adjacent to the AXA Towers.

CenterState CEO said it pursued the expansion in response to the “demand for space and innovation programming.’

“That ability to start and nurture and grow business is fundamental to the success of any economy and that is the singular mission for the Syracuse Technology 

Garden,” Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO, said in his remarks to begin the formal opening event. 

The Tech Garden II, which “soft launched” last October, is home to six tenants. They include M.A. Polce Consulting, Inc., a Rome–based computer consultant; VentureTechnica, a company offering custom-technology products; tuzag, Inc., a digital-advertising technology company; Lake Effect Applications, a gaming-application developer; TangoSquared LLC, a firm specializing in branding and marketing-communication design; and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Clean Tech Center.

“Both [Tech Garden] buildings function identically. Tenants can flow through both,” Seth Mulligan, vice president of innovation service at CenterState CEO, said 

during his talk at the event.

CenterState CEO, the region’s primary economic-development organization, represents 2,000 members in a 12-county area of Central New York.

The Tech Garden II, a $200,000 expansion, will support the collaborative efforts between CenterState CEO, the Tech Garden, and Syracuse University.

National Grid provided an additional $50,000 to help with the build-out.

The Tech Garden for the last two years has operated at “maximum physical capacity,” currently supporting 70 companies with more than 175 employees, according to a CenterState CEO news release.

The Tech Garden operates with about a $1.8 million total annual budget, with about 80 percent of that being grant funding and other outside funds that “pass through” to the startups and entrepreneurs it helps, according to Mulligan. Four full-time employees staff it. 

New York recently selected the Tech Garden as one of the first five New York State Innovation Hot Spots, a program that provides startup companies sales and income-tax relief “with the ability to grow into START-UP NY space,” according to CenterState CEO.

Grants for Growth

CenterState CEO also used the Feb. 2 event to announce $425,000 in Grants for Growth to seven companies.

The awards included $150,000 “concept to marketplace” investments for tuzag, Inc. and Skinny Eats, LLC, which will expand into a new specialty food manufacturing facility in Binghamton.

Tuzag has developed an “evolutionary” technology and methodology for making digital advertising better for both consumers and brands through an “anonymous, tailored advertising ecosystem,” Dave Bulger, company CEO, said at the event.

“Think eHarmony for ads,” he quipped.

Santa Monica, California–based eHarmony is a relationship website that uses a “compatibility matching system” to send members potential matches. 

With the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and School of Information Studies at Syracuse University; a “concentration of nationally regarded” advertising agencies; and “abundant” access to talent, Central New York seems “ideal” for an advertising-technology startup like tuzag, Bulger contended.

“However, if it wasn’t for Seth [Mulligan], the Grants for Growth program, the Tech Garden, and its designation as a Central New York Innovation Hotspot, I would not have been able to launch tuzag in Syracuse,” he added.

Starting any company is “fraught with peril,” Bulger noted, but trying to start a company in an area without pre-revenue resources is “merely an expedient way to burn through your life savings.”

Besides the “concept to marketplace” awards, the funding also includes $25,000 “proof of concept” grants to Solstice Power, which will construct a field-test prototype of its Solstice hybrid system. 

Its hybrid system is a “new solar technology that produces three times the electrical-energy efficiency of traditional flat solar panels and generates both electricity and heat from a single system,” according to CenterState CEO.

In addition, Ichor Therapeutics, Gyro Heat Technologies, Azeer Intimates, and Gridstream also secured “proof of concept” grants.