Accelerate Long Island Hits Major Milestone of 100 Technology Startups

MELVILLE, NY--(Marketwired - Jun 13, 2013) - Accelerate Long Island today announced that it now has connected with 100 early stage technology startup companies as part of its entrepreneurial ecosystem on Long Island, resulting from its efforts over the last eight months. It also reported that 25 percent of its startup companies are in the biotech sector, marking a surge in life sciences-related innovation in the region.

Of the 100 Accelerate Long Island startup companies within Accelerate Long Island's network, about 47 percent are in the Social/Mobile sector, 25 percent in BioTech, 17 percent in Clean Energy, 10 percent in Healthcare IT and about one percent in the Agri-bio industry in the East end of Long Island. Accelerate Long Island is helping researchers and startups transform their discoveries into viable businesses that provide solutions to the world's problems.

"With some of the best researchers and innovators in the world here on Long Island, it provides an incredible opportunity to create new businesses and commercialize research," said Mark Lesko, Executive Director of Accelerate Long Island. "We intend to foster that innovation to develop an entrepreneurial ecosystem and continue to grow the number of startup companies here on Long Island. We're looking to attract more venture capital dollars to Long Island to fund these innovative companies and others like them." 

According to Kevin Law, President and CEO of the Long Island Association and Chairman of the Accelerate Long Island Board, "Accelerate Long Island is fulfilling its mission to develop the region's innovation economy and put Long Island on the map as center for high tech. Cultivating Long Island's entrepreneurs is key to this effort." 

Accelerate Long Island is a unique collaboration among the region's world-class research institutions and business community, dedicated to commercializing research and creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem. It seeks to leverage the $1.2 billion in annual research funding at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Hofstra University, the North Shore-LIJ Feinstein Institute and Stony Brook University to create technology jobs and an innovation-based economy.

Accelerate Long Island offers funding, mentoring, events and a community of like-minded entrepreneurs to support early stage start-ups and help them succeed. Accelerate Long Island was created in 2011 to foster the development of an innovation-based economy on Long Island. Accelerate Long Island provides support to early stage startups through Accelerate Funding, Accelerate Assist and Accelerate Ecosystem. For more information, visit www.accelerateli.org, twitter: @AccelerateLI.