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N.Y. State has money to invest in start-up companies, DiNapoli says

By Samantha Maziarz Christmann
News Business Reporter

 New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli visited the Albright Knox Art Gallery today as part of Explore Buffalo Niagara Investor and Entrepreneur High-Tech Forum to advertise $528 million waiting to be invested in New York State companies from the New York State Common Retirement Fund through its In-State Private Equity Investment Program.

Buffalo is just one in a series of stops by DiNapoli as the program looks for innovative companies likely to turn a profit for the state's retirement fund.

"Western New York is a key part of the state's future. Your part of the state is so well primed to take us to the next level and we want our invested money to be part of that," DiNapoli said.

For the area's startup companies, the money represents hope of securing sorely needed revenue that could get locally researched and developed ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace.

The initiative is first and foremost an investment program, designed to make money for the retirement fund, but it also focuses on a second bottom line of economic development in the state.

"Our economic comeback is very likely to begin in a university lab," DiNapoli said. "I'm betting on New York's talent, entrepreneurial spirit and untapped potential."

The In-State Private Equity Investment Program takes credit for creating 2,700 jobs in New York State since its inception. Over 50 percent of funds committed by the program in the last two years have gone to upstate companies. Roughly $55 million has gone to 13 companies in Western New York. The program's shining star of a local success story is the advancement of ingestible electronic medical device SmartPill, developed at the University at Buffalo.

The event at the art gallery focuses on the growth potential of Western New York's high-tech industries, seeking to connect investors and entrepreneurs looking to take ideas developed in local centers of research to the next level of commercial development and eventually profitability.

schristmann@buffnews.com