Two Buffalo-based companies remain in the running at 43North.
Eight finalists have been chosen to move onto the 43North finals stage at Shea's Performing Arts Center on Thursday to pitch for $1 million investments and an opportunity to build their innovative startups in Buffalo.
The finalist field was pared down from 15 semifinalist who pitched today at Golisano Institute for Business & Entrepreneurship in downtown Buffalo.
This is the last year of the 43North competition, which started 12 years ago as the largest business competition in the world and invests $5 million annually in Buffalo. Portfolio companies have gone on to create about 1,000 jobs in Western New York and raise more than $1 billion in follow-on funding.
There is still time to get your free tickets to 43North Finals here.
Related: 43North Foundation announce $5B impact goal, names new CEO
Airbuild INC. – Portland, OR
Airbuild turns wastewater treatment plants into fertilizer microfactories, recovering the nutrients cities discard and returning them to the soil as Terraforming Fertilizer.
JECA Energy Bars – Buffalo, NY
JECA is a Buffalo-based food manufacturer & CPG brand producing energy bars with a focus on clean-label and real, non-ultra-processed whole-food ingredients for retail & direct to consumer distribution.
LeanSite – Arlington, TX
LeanSite is an AI-powered facilities operations platform that helps multi-site organizations manage maintenance, vendors, assets, compliance, and work orders from one system.
Neurath AI – New York, NY
Neurath builds an uncertainty layer for high-stakes AI in manufacturing, medicine, and defense, helping systems detect unreliable outputs before they cause costly failures.
Playground – Rochester, NY
Playground is a 15X award-winning brand building the trusted destination in women's intimate wellness in one of the largest yet most underserved categories in consumer health.
Valene Health – New York, NY
Valene Health’s AI-native clinical operating system automates clinical, operational, and financial workflows for health systems and payers to reduce readmissions, lower costs, and expand care capacity.
VoicePlug AI – Palo Alto, CA
VoicePlug AI builds the AI workforce that powers voice commerce for restaurants — taking orders by phone, drive-thru, and kiosk, and handling voice-based table reservations and event bookings.
Ziffy.ai – Buffalo, NY
Ziffy.ai is an AI-native real estate investing platform with embedded financing that combines cash-flow rental discovery, analysis, and rental loan financing in one workflow for local & global investors in the U.S.
