Investor / VCUpstate New York

StartFast Ventures

Investor / VC · Syracuse, NY

StartFast Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in B2B SaaS companies at the seed and Series A stages, with check sizes of $500K to $2MM, focusing on founders located outside major US VC hubs such as Charlotte, Phoenix, and Buffalo. The firm leads and co-invests in startups and provides support through faster investment decisions, access to co-investors, mentorship networks, and referrals to strategic partners.

Founded

Region

Upstate New York

Investors

People

About Upstate NY

Upstate New York seeded Silicon Valley more directly than most people realize: IBM started in Endicott, GE's research labs sat in Schenectady, and Kodak and Xerox built deep imaging and photonics expertise in Rochester — engineers and ideas from all three migrated west and helped build what came after. Cornell, RPI, the University of Rochester, and the SUNY system now anchor a semiconductor, photonics, and drone corridor that's a direct descendant of that older industrial-research base, not a recent transplant.

Region Stats

Total firms 137

VC / investors 61

Companies 59

Schools 17

Known For

Semiconductors

Photonics

Drones