Fall Newsletter
The latest updates from our investment team and portfolio.
In recent months, we had the pleasure of adding two new members to our burgeoning Advisory Board: Lindsay Moore and P. Tate Olinghouse. Lindsay is Principal Data Scientist at Marubeni America, where she stewards the Digital Innovation Center of Excellence. She oversees technical diligence on all Marubeni acquisitions and has extensive experience wrangling large data sets and developing machine learning tools; she will help us assess new opportunities in the vertical AI space, sifting the visionaries from those merely riding the wave. Tate, meanwhile, serves as Chief Client Officer at Acxiom, and brings a wealth of enterprise acumen in his own right, driving client relations for over half of the Fortune 100. His expertise in areas like sales, GTM, and finance give us a strategic edge when assessing a wide range of opportunities.
In September, our inaugural CEO Summit drew a crowd of sixty-plus founders, operators, and investors to the Skaneateles lakefront for a half-day session on topics like talent recruitment, hiring best practices, and growth strategy. We were gratified by the rave reviews we heard from attendees afterwards about our lineup of speakers: Robyn Meredith of BNY Wealth, ASV Advisors Pritam Advani and Laura Kinder (of Daversa Partners), ACV Auctions co-founder Dan Magnuzewski, and last but certainly not least, Sapna Werner of ghSmart, whose keynote offered fresh and actionable insights to founders looking to fine-tune their interviewing tactics. We look forward to making this event an annual tradition going forward.
The next day, managing partner Somak Chattopadhyay interviewed his longtime friend and former MIT roommate Sal Khan as part of our Annual Meeting. Sal shared the origin stories of Khan Academy and Khanmigo, an AI-powered Socratic tutor and teaching assistant formulated in partnership with the founders of OpenAI. At Somak’s urging, Sal weighed the promises and hazards of AI-assisted pedagogy, which opens doors to more equitable and personalized learning but also poses significant threats to data privacy and academic integrity. If you’re keen to watch the interview in full, you can do so here.
Our team’s recent trip to Buffalo for the 43North Startup Competition gave us time to reflect on our earliest foray into automotive tech, as lead investors in ACV Auctions (NASDAQ: ACVA). COO Vikas Mehta kindly gave us a tour of the company’s expanded headquarters, shepherding us through the open floor plan and down into the bowels of the R&D Department, where Phil Schneider (aka Dr. Phil) shared a few of the ingenious projects his team has underway in hopes of keeping Buffalo’s first-ever unicorn company ahead of the curve. Later that evening, we had the pleasure of meeting up with ACV cofounders George Chamoun and Dan Magnuszewski at a happy hour hosted by our friends at Aleron. George and Dan were among the earliest winners of the 43North Competition, and we wish the latest crop of winners crowned by Governor Hochul the best of luck in emulating ACV’s success.
In late October, Somak and Neenah Jain rounded out a year of speaking engagements in New York City and Pittsburgh, respectively. Somak moderated a panel on Enterprise AI Infrastructure at the MIT AI Conference (held in NYC for the first time ever) while Neenah served as a panelist at the 3 Rivers Venture Fair (3RVF), where she doled out insights on how founders should navigate fundraising in the present environment. 3RVF also gave our team an opportunity to meet with a slew of talented entrepreneurs working in areas like health tech, manufacturing, and ESG.
Closer to home, Somak delivered a lecture on term sheets to Cornell students in the undergraduate school and MBA program. He also made his debut as a columnist in the Syracuse Post-Standard in August (keep an eye out for additional bylines in the coming months) before being interviewed by the same publication in September. In other writerly news, Pia Sawhney and Preston DeGarmo attended the Words Without Borders Gala as representatives of the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation.
Company Updates
8B Education Investments was a semi-finalist and runner up in the aforementioned 43North Pitch Competition.
Compyl launched the Compyl Connect Partner Network, shoring up its partnership strategy as it continues to make waves in the cybersecurity space.
In related news, Compyl appointed BJ Ferguson Head of Global Channel Sales.
Jobs
Compyl is looking to fill several hybrid technical roles, including a Technical Project Manager, an Azure Infrastructure Engineer, and an Information Security and Compliance Analyst.
Machinery Partner is hiring a remote Machine Specialist.
About ASV
Armory Square Ventures (ASV) is a returns-oriented, mission-focused technology venture capital firm based in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. We created the company to seed greater opportunities and jobs for those living in our region and across the Midwest. Over the past decade, ASV has catalyzed the creation of over 2,500 jobs in Upstate New York. We like to say we are an optimism engine for secondary cities and a community catalyst for regions outside Silicon Valley. As a firm, we are also enriched and nourished by individuals from a range of backgrounds, who are all passionate about uplifting and inspiring growth across America's smaller cities.
• Stage: Seed & Series A
• Location: Management based in New York State and/or other emerging cities across the US
• Check Size: $1M - $3M in the first round with plenty of reserves for follow-on capital
• Business Profile & Model: Software, mobile, or technology-enabled services (emphasis on B2B) with repeatable, recurring, or transaction-based revenue models
• Market: Addressable markets of at least $1B+
• Team: Full-time technical/product leader and sales/marketing leader
• Traction & Unit Economics: Prototype of product deployed with a small sample size of customers; capital efficient
We’re hard at work scouting new investments. If you or someone you know has startup questions, reach out to either Anthony or Preston (emails below). We are actively investing out of our third fund and look forward to sharing more on it as it continues to take shape.
Best wishes in the meantime.
The Armory Square Ventures Team
Get in Touch
Have an opportunity to discuss, or want to talk startups?
Anthony Santaro - anthony@armorysv.com
Preston DeGarmo - preston@armorysv.com