CaroRhythm wins $150K top prize in New York commercialization contest
What's the deal? New York City-based CaroRhythmDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → won a $150,000 grant as the grand prize in the 2026 New York State Commercialization Competition, topping four companies that shared $430,000 in state-backed awards. The funding comes from Empire State DevelopmentDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR) and FuzeHubDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund.
What's the endgame? CaroRhythm is building CaroSense, a wearable device designed to continuously monitor blood flow at home and alert stroke survivors, care partners, and clinicians to stroke onset. The grant must be used to improve its existing prototype while it pursues customers, follow-on investment, and commercialization.
Who else won? Binghamton-based Lucent EMS Solutions took the $110,000 runner-up award for software that logs treatments and drafts patient care reports during emergency calls, aiming to cut documentation to under 10 minutes per call. Eggstraordinary of the Southern Tier, which makes a gluten-free, dairy-free egg-based cereal, and New York City-based CarbonCLAIRDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, which builds mobile air-treatment equipment, each received $85,000.
Why now? Nine entrepreneurs competed for the four awards at the New York State Innovation Summit, hosted by FuzeHub. The contest, now in its 10th year, is part of a broader state push to close the gap between research and market.
The signal: These are prototype-commercialization awards, not venture rounds — modest sums beside New York's venture market, where startups raised $3.14 billion in September. Their value is targeted validation and development support for four young companies spanning medical devices, emergency response, food, and environmental tech, a useful snapshot of the state's early-stage innovation pipeline.
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