The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Trampoline: Why Upstate NY's Scattered Startup Support Keeps Entrepreneurs Grounded
After the New York State Innovation Summit in Rochester (October 29th – 30th, 2025) we shared a few reflections which were received with mixed reactions from the major players of the Upstate NY entrepreneurial support ecosystem, and definitely sparked meaningful conversations. Our 1:1 follow-ups helped us understand their main objections:
“We’ve known this for 30 years.”
“We are not Silicon Valley.”
“We don’t need to be Silicon Valley, why should we copy them?”
We understand. In fact, our conclusion clearly stated “Upstate NY shouldn't be trying to become the Bay Area.” We love NY. We want the startups in the state to grow. Not just to watch them grow, but help them reach for the moon.
And we are definitely not attempting a rebuttal here. However, past the “The Cultural Divide: Failure and Founder Psychology” and “The Scale of Capital, a Sobering Reality” chapters, one thought kept lingering: “Bay Area startups aim for massive moonshots and platform plays, where Upstate NY builds on practical innovation and research translation.”
If you’ve ever watched kids sitting around a trampoline at a birthday party, you’ll notice two trends after they gather around. Usually, it starts with one courageous child getting on, and starting to jump.
If the kid trips, or worse, sprains an ankle and starts crying, they leave. Blame the trampoline, and find something else to do. They stay grounded.
If the kid gets excited, jumps higher and higher, everyone joins to experience the same joy.
Upstate New York has an impressive array of entrepreneurship support organizations. From Buffalo to Rochester, Syracuse to Albany, Ithaca to New Paltz, entrepreneurs can access incubators, accelerators, university centers, competitions, and funding programs. On paper, the ecosystem looks robust—even enviable.
But there's a tiny problem. Like a trampoline with some springs attached and others missing, the support system is scattered and uneven. And when entrepreneurs try to jump, they don't get the height they need to reach for moonshot ideas. Instead of launching toward transformative ventures that attract serious venture capital, they bounce unevenly—sometimes finding support, sometimes falling through gaps, but rarely achieving escape velocity. Excited entrepreneurs attract other excited entrepreneurs.
The Abundance Paradox
Upstate NY paints a picture of remarkable organizational density. With apologies for listing just a few, it’s not hard to identify: 15 Centers for Advanced Technology across the state, 20 Certified Business Incubators receiving state funding, 6 NYSERDA-supported clean energy incubators, multiple world-class competitions: GENIUS NY ($3M), 43North ($5M), Grow-NY ($3M), Luminate ($2M), statewide organizations (Launch NY, Upstate Venture Connect, Upstate Capital Association, FuzeHub, the Business Incubator Association), University entrepreneurship centers at Cornell, RIT, Syracuse, University of Rochester, University at Buffalo, Binghamton, and more.
This isn't a desert—it's a garden with many flowers. So why aren't we seeing more unicorns emerge from this fertile ground?
The Fragmentation Problem
The abundance masks a deeper structural issue: fragmentation without coordination. Consider what an entrepreneur in Syracuse experiences versus one in Buffalo or Ithaca:
In Syracuse, you might access:
GENIUS NY (if you're building drones or robotics)
The Tech Garden and CenterState CEO/INSPYRE
CNY Biotech Accelerator (if you're in life sciences)
StartFast Venture Accelerator (if you're building software)
Syracuse University's Blackstone LaunchPad (if you're a student)
In Buffalo, it's:
43North (if you win the competition)
Launch NY headquarters
University at Buffalo's CoLab
The Emerging Cleantech Opportunity Incubator
In Rochester:
NextCorps and Luminate (if you're in optics/photonics)
RIT's multiple programs
University of Rochester's Ain Center
CEIS for photonics and life sciences
Golisano Institute
Each city has developed its own constellation of support, often centered around regional strengths (optics in Rochester, drones in Syracuse, cleantech across the Southern Tier). This specialization makes sense in theory. But in practice, it creates uneven coverage, duplicated efforts, and inconsistent quality.
The Loose Springs
A well-anchored trampoline needs tension distributed evenly across all anchor points. Upstate NY's support system has strong anchor points in some areas and loose or missing ones in others:
Geographic Gaps
While major university cities have multiple resources, entrepreneurs in smaller cities face dramatically different landscapes. An entrepreneur in the Utica-Rome has access to UpVentures Capital and the Griffiss Institute, but the ecosystem is thin compared to Buffalo or Ithaca. Someone in Kingston or New Paltz has even fewer local options, forced to commute or relocate to access support.
Stage Gaps
The ecosystem excels at early-stage support—Launch NY's proof-of-concept funding, university accelerators, competitions for pre-seed companies. But where do you go when you've graduated from these programs and need Series A or Series B capital? The Pre-Seed & Seed Matching Fund provides $30M statewide, but that's spread thin across hundreds of companies. After that, the documented funding options become sparse.
Sector Gaps
If you're building a drone company, Syracuse rolls out the red carpet with GENIUS NY. Building an optics startup? Rochester's Luminate is world-class. But what if you're building enterprise SaaS, fintech, or a consumer marketplace? The sector-specific focus of many programs means entrepreneurs in "general" tech categories face a patchwork of generic support rather than specialized expertise.
Knowledge Transfer Gaps
With organizations operating independently across regions, best practices don't flow consistently. Launch NY has supported nearly 1,860 companies and learned valuable lessons. But how systematically are those insights shared with the Koffman Incubator in Binghamton or Spark Saratoga? The Business Incubator Association provides some networking, but coordination appears more episodic than systematic.
The Venture Capital Desert
Perhaps most telling: where are the venture capital firms? Serious venture capitalists invest where they see consistent deal flow, proven exit potential, and infrastructure that de-risks their investments. Upstate NY's scattered support system doesn't provide that confidence.
Why? Because venture capitalists need to see:
Consistent quality in startups reaching growth stages
Density of talent that can be recruited as companies scale
Follow-on funding available for subsequent rounds
Exit pathways through acquisitions or public markets
Ecosystem coordination that reduces friction
Upstate NY struggles on most of these dimensions. The fragmentation means VCs would need to evaluate dozens of disconnected programs to understand deal flow. The talent density is real but dispersed. Follow-on funding after initial programs is unclear. And the coordination gaps make it harder to de-risk investments.
The Moonshot Problem
When entrepreneurs lack confidence in their support infrastructure, they self-limit their ambitions. Why pursue a transformative idea that requires significant capital, talent, and long-term support when you're not sure those resources will be there when you need them?
This creates a vicious cycle:
Entrepreneurs pursue safer, incremental ideas
These attract modest local funding but not major VC attention
The absence of big wins reinforces perceptions that Upstate can't produce category leaders
Top talent leaves for Boston, NYC, or Silicon Valley
The remaining ecosystem becomes even more risk-averse
A well-anchored trampoline would give entrepreneurs confidence to jump high. Upstate's uneven support system encourages them to keep their feet closer to the ground.
What a Well-Anchored Ecosystem Looks Like
To extend the metaphor: each spring on a trampoline needs to be:
Properly tensioned (adequate funding at each stage)
Evenly spaced (geographic and sector coverage)
Securely attached (institutionalized, not dependent on individual champions)
Coordinated (working together to create consistent bounce)
Right now, Upstate NY has some very strong springs (the major competitions, Launch NY, ESD programs) but also loose ones (sparse later-stage capital, inconsistent quality across incubators) and missing ones (limited VC presence, weak coordination mechanisms).
The Path Forward
The good news: Upstate NY has the raw materials. The universities are world-class. The state commitment through Empire State Development is substantial. The industry clusters (optics, microelectronics, agriculture, cleantech) are real competitive advantages.
But to create a trampoline that lets entrepreneurs reach for moonshots, the ecosystem needs:
Standardization without stifling innovation: Core startup best practices shared across all incubators and accelerators
Growth-stage capital: Systematic Series A and B funding, either through expanded state programs or by attracting outside VCs
Regional coordination: Not just statewide organizations, but active collaboration among city-level ecosystems
Talent retention strategies: Making it attractive for graduates to build their companies locally rather than relocating
Clear pathways: Entrepreneurs should know exactly where to go at each stage, regardless of location or sector
The entrepreneurship support ecosystem in Upstate New York represents a significant public and private investment. But investment alone doesn't guarantee outcomes. Without coordination, standardization, and growth-stage support, even the most well-intentioned programs risk creating fragmentation rather than the cohesive infrastructure needed to compete with established innovation hubs.
Until these springs are properly anchored, Upstate NY's entrepreneurs will keep bouncing—sometimes finding support, sometimes falling through gaps, but rarely achieving the height needed to attract the serious capital that builds transformative companies.
The abundance of organizations isn't the problem. The lack of coordination and consistency is. It's time to anchor the trampoline properly, so Upstate's entrepreneurs can finally jump high enough to reach the moon.
