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Big interest exhibited in Grow-NY agricultural business competition
Big interest exhibited in Grow-NY agricultural business competition
The inaugural Grow-NY agricultural business competition has attracted nearly 200 applications hoping to win start-up money to launch a venture in the Finger Lakes region.
The applicants are competing to be among the 20 finalists who will have a chance to pitch their businesses at a Grow-NY Food and Ag Summit Nov. 12-13, where prize winners will be named and $3 million in prizes will be awarded.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the range of applicants earlier this week in the contest attempting to strengthen food, beverage and agricultural innovation in a 22-county region.
“The Grow-NY competition has attracted a group of diverse, innovative entrepreneurs who are ready to focus on finding new ways to further transform New York’s world-renowned food and agricultural industry,” Cuomo said.
According to state officials, about half of the 199 applications came from entrepreneurs in New York. Twenty-three states were represented, with 13 projects being proposed from Massachusetts alone.
Most of the foreign applicants are from Canada and Israel, noted state officials, but applications also came from Europe, Central America, Africa and the Middle East. One entrepreneur is from New Zealand.
Nearly one-third of the applicants are women and 28 percent of the businesses were started by women.
Tom Schryver, executive director of Cornell University‘s Center for Regional Economic Advancement, which is administrating the initiative, said, “Internally, we had established a target of 150 applicants to consider this stage a success, so to exceed that figure by nearly one third — and to generate the broad geographic, gender and ethnic diversity we’re seeing on top of that — it makes us all excited as to the prospects for this initiative and the impact it could have on our region.”
Each finalist will be invited to the area, which comprises the Finger Lakes, Syracuse, Rochester, Ithaca and Binghamton, and assigned a mentor to help them hone their pitches before presenting them at the summit.
Grow-NY is awarding one $1 million prize, two $500,000 prizes and four $250,000 prizes.
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