SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Tech Garden, an affiliate of CenterState CEO, on Monday presented funding awards to nine recipients through its Grants for Growth program.
The Tech Garden awarded nearly $475,000 in the program’s 11th round, the organization said in a news release. The investment will leverage more than $919,000 in matching funds to support “emerging” regional companies.
In this latest round, the Tech Garden selected seven recipients for a $25,000 “Proof of Concept” grant and two firms for a $150,000 “Concept to Marketplace” investment, the organization said.
The Tech Garden awarded “Concept to Marketplace” investments to Ephesus Lighting, Inc., which is based at the Tech Garden and partnering with Syracuse University (SU).
Ephesus Lighting designs and manufactures light-emitting diode (LED) lighting products for the industrial and sports markets.
The Tech Garden awarded another $150,000 grant to NexID Biometrics of Potsdam, which is collaborating with Clarkson University.
The firm is commercializing “liveness detection biometric-security software to enable faster and more secure fingerprint scanning in electronic devices,” according to the news release.
The “Proof on Concept” grant recipients include Avatar, a biochemisty firm that partnered with the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry; and Tuzag, which partnered with SU as it develops a software platform that can deliver “highly customized” digital advertisements.
The recipients also included three companies that collaborated with Cornell University, such as Euphony, Infinivation Biomedical, and ZYMtronix, the Tech Garden said.
The list of grant winners also included MacKintock, an industrial software firm that partnered with SUNY Cortland; and Quansor, a firm that focuses on water-quality testing and that partnered with SUNY Binghamton.
To date, the Grants for Growth program has awarded 50 grants and investments totaling more than $2.7 million.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com