Blackstone LaunchPad Hosts Investor-Ready Symposium
Syracuse University Libraries’ Blackstone LaunchPad (LaunchPad) hosted its first Investor-Ready Symposium on April 19 in Bird Library that was attended by members of Blackstone LaunchPad from Syracuse University, Colgate University and Blackstone LaunchPad at State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany.
The Symposium included a networking breakfast and panel with young startup founders that have successfully raised funds: Sean Lattimore ’23, founder of Suptho; Aidan Meany, founder of Found Surface; Ben Haber, founder of Monark Markets; and Matt Schneider, founder of e-States. The panel was followed by an open session for student entrepreneurs to get to know the various types of early-stage investors, which included a distinguished panel from the local investment ecosystem as well as investors from coast to coast. The group included Libraries Advisory Board member and angel investor, Yvonne Hyland; Zenyatta Capital co-founder, Andrew Schwartz ’20; ESD – NY Ventures director, Andy Reed; Nurture VC managing director, Sashi Tripathi; director of Upstate Venture Connect, Dustin Doucette; and Oculus VC, a local venture capital firm, co-founder, Dr. David Tsung. The symposium wrapped up with a lightning round of elevator pitches by current LaunchPad student founders to the panelist-judges. The following student startups were the People’s Choice awardees for the event:
- 1st Place: Sam Hogan, founder of HireBird, from SUNY Albany’s Blackstone LaunchPad
- 2nd Place: Natasha Brao ’22 (College of Visual and Performing Arts), G’23, G’24 (Martin J. Whitman School of Management), founder of Shooka Sauce
- 3rd Place Tie: Frank Marin ’24 (College of Engineering and Computer Science), founder of Marhold Space Systems; and Yaneeka Nichols ’26 (School of Information Studies), founder of SNDER
- Honorable mentions: Motolani Oladitan ’24 (College of Arts and Sciences), founder of Tá Beautie; Neil Adams ’25 (S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications), founder of Band Launch Media; and Chris Cherniakov, founder of Telemetree, from Colgate University
Funds for the awards were generously donated by alum Andrew Schwartz.
Prior to the Symposium, the LaunchPad hosted a series of workshops designed to prepare students to meet potential investors on the topics of contract negotiation; due diligence-data room preparation; term sheet overview; and financial instruments review.