UK firm captures $1 million top prize in this year’s Genius NY competition

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Archangel Imaging from the United Kingdom (UK) captured the $1 million grand prize in round six of the Genius NY accelerator competition.

The Genius NY program is the “world’s largest” business-accelerator competition focused on uncrewed systems, data to decision, and Internet of Things (IoT), the office of Gov. Kathy Hochul said in announcing the investment winners Thursday night.

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

Archangel Imaging “deploys smart machines, alongside people, to protect valuable assets and at-risk staff in remote or challenging places,” as described in the governor’s news release. Whether it’s stealing cables, tapping oil, or poaching elephants for ivory, the company provides the ability for the security team to know before these incidents are about to happen and “immediately intervene or follow up.”

“Being selected as the GENIUS NY 2022 grand prize winner is an incredible achievement and recognition for our team, particularly in the context of such high-quality companies in the cohort this year,” Dan Sola, CEO of Archangel Imaging, said. “This investment enables us to create high value jobs and fuel long term growth and local partnerships. Throughout the program we have benefited from the amazing support and investment from GENIUS NY, CenterState CEO and Empire State Development. Both local government and local businesses here have helped us to hit the ground running and we’re already hiring and engaging in joint development. We are proud to be a part of the Central New York community.” 

Fusion Engineering of the Netherlands; AVSS – Aerial Vehicle Safety Solutions, Inc. of Canada; Wonder Robotics of Israel; and Dronehub of Poland were each awarded investments of $500,000.

The year-long program awarded five finalist teams a total of $3 million at its finals night event at the Marriott Syracuse Downtown, including investments of $1 million and four $500,000 awards.

CenterState CEO’s Tech Garden in Syracuse administers the program, which offers incubator space, company resources, programming and mentoring to accelerator finalists. To date, New York State has invested $30 million in Genius NY over the program’s six rounds.