September 28th, 2021
MARL will invest $2 million in Monroe County over the next three years. COMIDA Backs Effort With $150,000 Investment.
MARL 5G, an accelerator program focused on startups that create DeepTech products and services for enterprise customers running on 5G, has announced it will be opening a new MARL Center in Rochester, NY.
“At MARL, our goal is to connect upstate New York to Silicon Valley. We have discovered ample talent here and we see the beginning on new Silicon Valley in Northeast. We plan to provide upstate New York a startup ecosystem with access to top-level mentors, venture capitalists, corporate partners and customers based here in Silicon Valley to help startups succeed,” said Amir Khan, Managing Partner at MARL Accelerator.
“Monroe County was named as the top area in the country best positioned to jump-start our nation’s innovation economy,” said Monroe County Executive Adam Bello. “MARL 5G’s placement of a new start-up center here underscores the entrepreneurial climate and opportunities we offer. The $150,000 support for the MARL Accelerator by the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency (COMIDA) is a sound investment in our economic future.”
The MARL Fund has the capital to invest in up to 30 startups every year for three years at a minimum. The company plans to invest $2 million into Rochester within three years of the new center opening, which can potentially create 200-300 new jobs in that timeframe.
In addition to the investments, MARL Accelerator will be offering a 12-week, hands-on mentorship to each startup. The mentorship program includes guidance from pre-seed fundraising to branding and investor readiness. MARL Accelerator will also provide startups with $550,000 in various service credits for cloud services, legal, banking, marketing, branding and technology services. The investment can give technical startups a 10 to 12 months runway.
“We have a real opportunity to grow the tech business landscape in Monroe County and the upstate region. Upstate New York has great community colleges and universities that are known to produce great tech talents; MARL expansion can help to retain those talents in the region, which has a potential of creating a huge innovation hub over the next 3-5 years,” added Prakash Goswami, Managing Partner at MARL Accelerator.
The MARL 5G program staff will work with local mentors, corporations and university labs to create the local startup ecosystem in Monroe County. The team will work with the county, teaching entrepreneurship-related courses to help reskill the local workforce and the local economy during the summer.
For more information about the program, criteria required to apply, or to apply to be part of the fall 2021 or spring 2022 Rochester Cohort, visit https://roc.marl5g.com/
