Regional firms to pitch for funding in FuzeHub contest

ALBANY, N.Y. — The finalists in FuzeHub’s 2021 commercialization competition include businesses from Syracuse, Cazenovia, Binghamton, Hamilton, and Potsdam.

The event is set for Nov. 8-9 at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona. The competition — part of FuzeHub’s Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund — is in its fifth year. A total of 12 entrepreneurs from across New York state will pitch their ideas before a live audience for the chance to win $50,000.

FuzeHub is an Albany–based nonprofit that works to help small and medium-sized manufacturing companies in New York state.

“FuzeHub is excited to celebrate these New York State technology entrepreneurs on their pathway to becoming future business leaders in our communities. These awards continue to help a diverse set of start-ups further develop their products and get closer to bringing them to market,” Elena Garuc, executive director of FuzeHub, said in a news release.

Regional finalist companies

• Carapace Analytics LLC of Syracuse is focused on advancing technologies in senior care and monitoring. The firm says its goal is to mitigate the effects of fall injuries among older adults through individualized activity data. It’s developing a wearable device and software suite that provides a detailed report of one’s mobility and associated risks. Carapace Analytics “seeks to change the paradigm” of older adult care by introducing a level of objective mobility monitoring that would “otherwise be impossible to achieve,” as described in the FuzeHub release.

• “With an expanding desire and need for green energy,” DomCat Technologies, LLC of Binghamton seeks to expand New York’s manufacturing base with its low platinum-content catalysts for fuel-cell applications, as described by FuzeHub.

• Eco-Baggeez LLC of Cazenovia says its patented alternative to plastic sandwich bags will help “put a dent” in the billions of plastic sandwich bags that end up in landfills, waterways, and oceans from U.S. households each year, per FuzeHub. With a “strong social mission,” the firm says it plans to expand its product line and impact by providing Eco-Baggeez in B2B, B2C, and B2G channels in both retail and wholesale arenas.

• Natural Beauty Breast Prosthesis, LLC, of Hamilton, manufactures an organic, all-natural fiber, external breast form for women who have had mastectomies without reconstruction. “We help women look, move, and feel like their natural selves while giving them the peace of mind knowing what they’re putting up against their skin will do them no further harm,” the company says.

• Pharmacoustics Technologies, LLC of Potsdam is an ultrasonic characterization/evaluation device startup developing instruments and equipment for assuring and increasing quality in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

• SensoLife LLC, also of Potsdam, says it creates materials and sensing solutions that provide easier, more convenient, and inexpensive technology for health monitoring and wearables. The company’s conductive transparent materials address long-standing issues with wearable electronics, providing flexibility, optical transparency and conductivity.