“Stephanie - Great to see you yesterday! As the 43N Foundation’s storytelling lead, I’m creating a new digital platform that boosts the story of entrepreneurship and innovation in Buffalo. I’d love to feature you in that publication. What do you think?”
That was the message I sent to Stephanie Argentine, chief people officer at fast-growing Centivo, as we were preparing to launch the Series B storytelling platform.
Steph’s Q&A became the first feature story on our website, highlighting a company that has raised hundreds of millions in venture capital, quietly leased substantial downtown office space and zoomed past 100 local employees.
It’s one of many great stories featured in Series B since it launched six months ago, attracting more than 60,000 unique viewers from across the U.S.
The narrative hasn't been controlled or prescribed. This platform has merely been a conduit for stories of progress and momentum — words that this community has earned.
Series B has the receipts. Within a month of launching, FoodNerd CEO Sharon Cryan mentioned that her company was preparing to announce a $7.5M round of funding and the opening of its 28,000-square-foot factory.
That story sparked a broader conversation about food entrepreneurship in Buffalo, based on our rich legacy of corporate innovation (a river that runs through such amazing locally headquartered companies as Rich Products, Rosina Food Products, Steuben Foods and more).
We subsequently featured the growth of Top Seedz, Edenesque and JECA, and Series B contributing editor Lauren Washington penned this column, openly suggesting Buffalo could be a national mecca for food innovation.
It turns out that when you start kicking over rocks, there’s plenty of growth and innovation happening locally. In late February, I took the elevator up a couple floors at Seneca One Tower, looking for the offices of Azuna founder and CEO Scott Dancy.
I finally found him in a conference room and told him I’d been looking for Azuna’s office. “You’re standing in it,” Dancy said. It turns out Azuna has taken most of the entire floor. Our subsequent article, “$100 Million Club: The quiet explosion of Buffalo-based Azuna” is still the most-read piece on our website.
Around that time, I connected with old friends at HelixIntel, curious to catch an update following their $11M Series A round from a few years ago. The answer? A hot potato in Larkinville: “How HelixIntel became an insure-tech force of nature.”
I’m not sure I’d ever said the word insure-tech before 2026, but between Centivo, HelixIntel, InsurePay (based on the core team that built and then sold Utilant) and OneBridge, Buffalo has an exciting cluster of scaling companies that sell in and around the insurance industry.
I had a similar question (expressed as, “Hey, how are things?”) for David Lord, whose outdoor rec-tech startup, Guidesly, raised about $10M early last year. The answer: a company preparing to double its local headcount because it's growing faster than a Red Tail Catfish (my vote for favorite Series B headline so far, though it prompted a certain level of good-humored confusion).
Speaking of 43North portcos, we featured each of the new founders as they moved into Buffalo (Cosi Care, Cellsense, Floe, Tukki and RadEmploy), and we can’t wait to revisit those stories to examine their progress. Past 43North winner Twipes checked in to report strong traction, a pending raise and plans to move production to Buffalo (check out the warm-hearted humility between Twipes cofounders Al and Elle in our new podcast, highlighted below).
In late May, Series B had an opportunity to articulate an important evolution in Buffalo’s startup community: the wind-down of the 43North competition. As we explained, this is a moment to celebrate a landmark initiative in local economic development, but also to get excited about a future where the 43North Foundation creates new companies, makes a major investment into the local talent pool, builds a highly engaged corporate community and explains all of this in an effective, coordinated way (hi).
43North proved that great things are possible in Buffalo. The best is yet to come
Over the past six months, Series B has clapped along as the Golisano Institute for Business & Entrepreneurship revived the vacant Buffalo News building and started building important bridges with employers; celebrated successful expats such as Mike Sullivan who are considering a major reinvestment in their hometown; wrote case studies about EY and its longterm investment in Buffalo’s startup scene; dedicated an entire week to the emerging film production industry here; and brought Buffalo Bills legend Eric Wood back to Buffalo to cap Buffalo Startup Week by “drafting” 11 local startups onto the Series B team.
Series B’s contributors have emphasized the amazing set of resources that has been built to support Buffalo’s innovation economy. TechBuffalo’s Greg Pokriki, serving as Series B deputy editor, hosts the Series B podcast, plans and writes many of our stories and, in his spare time, helps people understand the fundamentally awesome work TechBuffalo is doing for this community; UB’s Lauren Washington has written stories across her personal journey, programs she runs at UB and Buffalo’s startup scene; Launch NY’s Cydney Sanders has spotlighted her organization’s portfolio companies and investor programs; Radial Ventures’ Jonathan Gorczyca has penned thoughtful columns about creativity, innovation and building in Buffalo; and 43North team members Christian Gaddis, Tiffani Dickinson and Alison Rushnova have been invaluable partners across content, creative and social media.
I’ll leave with a cool thing. We haven’t even gotten to many of Buffalo’s biggest stories in growth and innovation: the legacy of ACV Auctions and the wild technology they’re currently piloting; the ongoing explosion of Odoo; the impact of major downtown investments by M&T Bank and Ingram Micro; the flourishing hub of clean tech innovation at Viridi (look for that this week!); and the emerging med-tech commercialization corridor on Northland Avenue.
So if you’re a potential founder, join the next Startup Wednesday or Starting Line cohort. If you’re a business leader, check out the 43North Foundation’s Ambassador Network.
If you’re just into celebrating Buffalo, then stay tuned. Our next great story comes out this afternoon: a $20M Series A from a well-known local startup.
And tell your friends to sign up for the Series B newsletter. We promise, on your behalf, that we’ll keep kicking over rocks.
