Seven new incubator clients have moved into incubator programs at our supporting member the University at Buffalo during 2012, and five companies graduated. In a year-end recap, UB listed the five new entrants to the UB Technology Incubator at the suburban Amherst campus:

• Cloud62, a services firm that helps clients implement best practices on the salesforce.com platform;
• Helios-NRG, a technology-development firm focusing on industrial gases and clean energy;
• OptoElectronic Nanodevices, a startup founded by UB faculty with expertise in photonics and materials sciences;
• Refulgent Software, developer of the Ambur point-of-sale app for restaurants; and
• UFC Biotechnology, which synthesizes high-value molecules used by other life-science companies.

Previously, we noted the admission of three tenants (one a relocation between facilities) at the new Biosciences Incubator at the UB/Kaleida Health Clinical-Translational Research Center at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. UB has also recapped five graduations in 2012:

• BridgeComposites
• GSELearning
• Ladybug Teknologies
• TPF Enterprises
• Trek

For more information see the university news release.

M&T Bank of Buffalo has made a five-year, $75,000 grant in support of general operations at our supporting member the SUNY Fredonia Technology Incubator in downtown Dunkirk. Grants that allow incubators to offer entrepreneurs high-quality business assistance are among the most difficult kind of philanthropic support to achieve, and we salute M&T Bank for its continued, generous support of the Fredonia incubator program. For more information, read the university's news release.

Business incubators statewide, including many among our association's membership, repeated their strong performance in the second round of economic-development awards made by New York State through Governor Cuomo's Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Awards to our members or their affiliates include:

• $2.5 million to a regional business-acceleration cooperative led by our supporting member High Tech Rochester.
• $500,000 to our member the Central New York Biotech Accelerator in Syracuse, for fit-out with laboratory equipment.
• $7 million for a new Southern Tier High Technology Incubator in downtown Binghamton, a collaboration between our member SUNY Binghamton University and the regional economic-development community.
• $500,000 for a 30,000 square-foot expansion of biotechnology incubation facilities at our member Broad Hollow Bioscience Park at SUNY Farmingdale on Long Island.
• $500,000 for shared-use laboratory equipment at Rensselaer Tech Park, which manages our member the RPI Emerging Ventures Ecosystem.
• $500,000 for expansion of our member the Pratt Design Incubator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and addition of a low-run garment-fabrication pilot line.

In addition, awards were made to several incubator and accelerators that are not yet members of our association (and we warmly invite them to join us!).

Finally, a $350,000 economic-development incentive award from Empire State Development was made to Dunkirk Bioenergy, a tenant-client of our supporting member the SUNY Fredonia Technology Incubator. For complete details, read Gov. Cuomo's news release or the full report on all 2012 awards.

Our member the Pratt Design Incubator is helping a Brooklyn group incorporate community designs into a modular system for protective steel guards around street-trees. The guards in turn support wooden benches, so the effect is to create micro-parks around 50 tree pits along a commercial stretch of Brooklyn's Myrtle Avenue. For coverage including a photo, see the Fort Greene Local blog of The New York Times. UPDATE: Wall Street Journal coverage, too!