(BINGHAMTON, NY) Broome County Executive Jason Garnar and Legislature Chairman Daniel J. Reynolds joined representatives from Binghamton University and the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator today to unveil the recipient of a countywide entrepreneurship grant program to fund student start-up businesses.
With funds from the Hotel-Motel Economic Development and Marketing fund, a grant of $5,000 was awarded to the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator to be provided to ChemSense. ChemSense is the third ever recipient of this entrepreneurship grant.
Broome County created the Student Entrepreneurship Grant to foster innovation economy and directly address the brain drain of students from this area. Previous recipients are Enhance VR and AdamaDoll.
“I’m excited for ChemSense to join our ever-growing great group of businesses to have received the Student Entrepreneurship Grant,” said Broome County Executive Jason Garnar. I look forward to continuing to work alongside our partners to support developing businesses in Broome County and boost our local economy and sense of community.”
“The Legislature looks forward to continue watching Ms. Schmitt’s ‘ChemSense’ develop and prosper with the help of the Student Entrepreneurship Grant Program,” said Chairman Daniel J. Reynolds. “We are always proud to support these types of investments in our local business community that help foster new ideas and better practices throughout Broome County.”
Lynn Schmitt is the founder of ChemSense. Schmitt developed a test for sulfites in wine, beer, and hard ciders during her graduate studies with Professor Alistair Lees. Current testing protocols take two hours per sample and require storage and use of strong chemicals by the wineries. Schmitt’s test can be done in under a minute. Wineries are required to test each barrel of each grape variety. With current methods it may take several days to test a modest sized winery’s inventory. With Schmitt’s system, this would be reduced to a few hours. Her test is cost competitive and accurate to substantially lower levels of sulfites. Her initial focus has been on the wine industry, but it would also work for breweries and cideries which do not have simple testing options. She has filed for a patent on the process. Schmitt plans to use the $5,000 to complete her C-Corp filing and for costs associated with trademarking and website development. She already has an investor ready to commit once she has her C-Corp filed.
