The numbers are trickling in for 2024, another successful year for the founders, employees, and investors of Rev: Ithaca Startup Works 32 member startups. Success looked different for our Rev members as some accepted new partnerships, some closed rounds of seed funding, and others continued to innovate. Regardless, Rev’s community continued to grow and scale their businesses while positively impacting the Ithaca region and beyond.
Rev: Ithaca Startup Works is proud to announce that throughout 2024, Rev member startups created 33 new high-quality jobs, raised $5.7 million in capital, and generated $7.4 million in revenue. “In 2025, we will continue to evolve our strategies for supporting entrepreneurs as they validate, launch, and scale their businesses,” says Ken Rother, Director of Rev: Ithaca Startup Works. “Each year brings new challenges for our Rev member companies, and we remain committed to developing new techniques and resources to help them navigate an evolving landscape and achieve success.”
There was a lot to celebrate at Rev this past year:
- Rev member company Antithesis Foods, a food startup specializing in making processed foods healthier, launched three products in 4000 CVS stores nationwide.
- Rev Alumni Stardom member Ecolectro was awarded $3.6M in funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure & Jobs Law.
- Rev Members Udderways and For Bitter For Worse both placed in the Grow-NY Food & Ag Business Competition.
- The Fuzehub 2024 Commercialization Competition during the New York State Innovation Summit had seven prize winners, four of which have participated in multiple hardware accelerators at Rev: Ithaca Startup Works.
- Rev member SimpliFed, a pioneer in maternal health care, raised $4 million in funding, much of which came from The Artemis Fund, a venture capital fund dedicated to helping female tech innovators, Cultivation Capital, and the American Heart Association Social Impact Funds.
- Rev receives a Town Gown award in recognition of its Hardware Accelerator programs. Honored by Cornell University, these annual TOGOs celebrate impactful campus-community partnerships and the people who make them possible.
In 2024, Rev continued to support early-stage startups in validating their business ideas and developing skills for success as they fine-tuned their go-to-market strategies through Rev’s Prototyping Hardware Accelerator and Manufacturing Hardware Accelerator.
The “Protofacturing” Hardware Accelerator was launched, thanks to the “Build to Scale” grant from the Economic Development Agency; this $2 million grant and a local matching fund of $2 million, to help early-stage startups bridge the gap between prototyping and manufacturing. After a pilot in the summer of 2023, the accelerator officially welcomed its inaugural cohort, accepting 24 companies.
2024 marks a milestone for Rev as we celebrate 10 years of supporting Ithaca’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Since our modest inception in 2014 with just four founding members, Rev has blossomed into an entrepreneurship hub within the Ithaca community. We proudly serve nearly 40 members and draw over 1,000 attendees to our events each year. Over the past decade, Rev has been dedicated to providing invaluable resources, including mentorship, workspace, content sessions, and networking opportunities, which have been instrumental in the growth and success of the startups we support.
Rev also opened its doors for monthly Networking@Rev events, serving as a convener of entrepreneurs and a channel for Ithaca’s diverse community to gather, connect, and collaborate. Of our Networking@Rev events, the most popular was Campus to Community Connections in April, which focused on bringing together Ithaca’s campuses and community, and September’s Successful Student Startups showcasing students’ innovations and achievements, which attracted nearly 300 attendees.
Are you interested in getting involved in Rev’s entrepreneurial ecosystem? Look no further than our website for upcoming events, workshops, and entrepreneurial opportunities open to founders and community members! Be sure to join us on April 9th for Networking@Rev: Campus to Community Connection.