Genius NY program announces finalists for its third round

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Genius NY, a business accelerator program at CenterState CEO’s Tech Garden, has announced the five companies selected as finalists for its third round.

These startup drone companies will participate in the year-long program and will compete for a total of $3 million in direct investment, with one grand prize of up to $1 million and four $500,000 awards, CenterState CEO said in a news release.

Genius NY stands for Growing ENtrepreneurs & Innovators in UpState New York.

“We are excited to welcome these latest innovative entrepreneurs to Central New York for round three of the Genius NY competition,” Howard Zemsky, president, CEO & Commissioner of Empire State Development, said. “This unique contest supports UAS startups in developing the next-generation technologies that will further support the burgeoning drone industry in the region.”

The five companies will move into the Tech Garden in Syracuse in January to begin competing for $3 million in investments. The startups were selected from a pool of more than 350 submissions. Finalists include teams with international and regional representation.

“These companies were selected from an incredibly competitive pool of applications,” Rick Clonan, VP of innovation and entrepreneurship at CenterState CEO, said. “This year’s applicant pool and high-growth finalists are a reflection of the success of prior rounds and the program’s overall impact on participating teams. As round-three teams join the innovation ecosystem we have created at the Tech Garden, they too will benefit from a network of resources needed to rapidly grow their companies as previous participants have.”

The finalists

Here are the five finalists selected for Genius NY 3.0, as described by CenterState CEO:

• ResilienX of Syracuse, which is focused on “improving safety in the autonomous traffic management ecosystem,” per the news release. Its products will increase system resilience and operational uptime by automating fault detection and contingency management; benefiting adopters through decreased expenditures in operations; regression testing; and maintenance.

• EagleHawk of Buffalo is a drone-powered, technology company “revolutionizing” the way commercial roofs are inspected and managed. In just two years, EagleHawk has inspected over 500 buildings and 11 million square-feet of rooftop. It is helping customers “detect unknown issues, mitigate risk, and reduce roof maintenance costs,” as described in the release.

• Vermeer of the New York City borough of Brooklyn is an “augmented reality drone solution” that enables anyone to capture aerial photos, videos and data. A user can now design their aerial shot in an augmented reality environment and then send it to a drone to “execute autonomously in the real world,” per the release.

• Civdrone of Israel develops “fast, reliable and autonomous marking solutions” on enterprise drones for the construction industry. Digitalizing and automating land-surveying services will “increase productivity and shorten time of construction while lowering its costs.”

• Sentient Blue of Italy develops “efficient, more environmentally friendly micro gas turbine based power plants for use in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to increase flight endurance.”

 Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com