10 Deep-Tech Startups, $2 Million and Rochester’s Next Wave of Innovation

Luminate Finals 2026 will bring emerging technologies in AI, semiconductors, healthcare, quantum and advanced manufacturing to the stage in Rochester.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Ten deep-tech startups will take the stage in Rochester on Sept. 30 with technologies spanning artificial intelligence, semiconductors, healthcare, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing and augmented reality and up to $2 million in investment on the line.

It's Nextcorps's Luminate Finals 2026, the culmination of the ninth cohort of Rochester-based Luminate, an accelerator and investment fund focused on startups developing technologies enabled by optics, photonics, imaging and lasers.

Part technology showcase, part startup competition and part look at where the region's innovation economy is heading, the event gives Rochester's business community a chance to see what 10 companies from around the world have spent the past six months building. And the technologies go well beyond what most people may think of when they hear "optics and photonics."

One company is using artificial intelligence and imaging to change how labor is assessed during childbirth. Another is developing technology to inspect areas buried inside increasingly complex semiconductor packages. Others are working on engineered diamond, real-time biomanufacturing sensors, augmented-reality displays and lasers small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.

On Sept. 30, those companies will compete for up to $2 million in follow-on investment, including a $1 million Company of the Year investment. Attendees will also vote live for the recipient of a $10,000 Audience Choice Award.

Bringing global technology companies to Rochester

A program of NextCorps, Luminate is focused specifically on startups developing technologies enabled by optics, photonics and imaging. The accelerator invests $3 million annually in 10 companies and connects participating founders with investors, mentors, technical resources and Rochester's established optics and photonics ecosystem.

This year's companies were selected from 138 applicants representing 33 countries. Each received an initial $100,000 investment and entered a six-month accelerator program focused on commercialization and business growth. That makes Finals more than a pitch competition.

It is the public-facing conclusion of six months spent moving technologies closer to viable businesses sharpening go-to-market strategies, making industry connections and determining where emerging technology can solve commercially meaningful problems.

Here are the 10 companies taking the stage:

AB Photonics | Guilford, Connecticut

AB Photonics is developing compact, high-powered pulsed lasers designed to make advanced laser technology easier to purchase, integrate and operate.

Its Pulsera product line consists of compact picosecond mode-locked solid-state lasers designed as turnkey systems. The company's technology is built around making sophisticated pulsed laser systems more scalable and accessible to commercial and research customers.

Brightlight Photonics | Cambridge, Massachusetts

Brightlight Photonics is working to put titanium-sapphire laser technology onto a chip.

The company develops integrated titanium-doped sapphire lasers and amplifiers along with ultraviolet and visible photonic systems. Its technology is being developed for applications including quantum technologies, precision measurement and biomedicine.

In simple terms, Brightlight is working to take sophisticated laser capabilities traditionally associated with larger systems and move them toward much smaller integrated devices.

Ciconia Medical | San Diego, California

Ciconia Medical is using artificial intelligence and medical imaging to rethink how labor progression is assessed during childbirth.

The company is developing an AI-based medical device intended to provide clinicians with objective measurements as an alternative to the manual vaginal examinations commonly used during labor.

Its technology is designed to provide visual and numerical information that can help clinicians evaluate labor progression and make decisions using more objective data.

Diamond Quanta | Mountain View, California

Diamond Quanta is working to make engineered diamond practical for commercial technologies.

The company is commercializing its Adamantine Platform, an engineered-diamond materials platform designed for integration into industrial manufacturing.

Its work includes diamond-based optical coatings and thermal solutions for advanced electronics, with broader applications across optics, semiconductors, photonics, power electronics and quantum technologies.

The opportunity comes from diamond's unusual combination of thermal, optical, mechanical and electronic properties. The challenge is turning those properties into materials that can be manufactured and integrated at commercial scale.

Gekko Photonics | Wroclaw, Poland

Gekko Photonics is bringing chemical analysis directly onto the manufacturing floor.

The company develops process analyzers that combine Raman spectroscopy, artificial intelligence and chemometrics to measure chemical composition and quality during production.

Instead of relying exclusively on samples taken from a production line and analyzed later, manufacturers can potentially identify changes while production is underway creating opportunities to improve quality, reduce waste and respond to problems faster.

Gekko also lists a Rochester presence at NextCorps, another example of how participation in Luminate can connect international technology companies directly with the region.

Hypervision | Israel

Hypervision is developing wide-field-of-view visual systems designed to give people operating remote systems greater peripheral awareness.

Its technology is being developed for applications including drones, remotely operated vehicles, autonomous systems and advanced simulators.

Rather than forcing an operator to understand a remote environment through a conventional screen or narrow field of view, Hypervision is working to create a more immersive visual experience that more closely resembles natural human vision.

Manifest Technologies | Boulder, Colorado

Manifest Technologies is developing a different approach to additive manufacturing.

Traditional 3D printing generally creates an object one layer at a time. Manifest's Parallax Volumetric Additive Manufacturing, or P-VAM, uses light and algorithms to cure photoreactive resin across three dimensions.

The company says its approach can produce complex parts significantly faster than traditional additive manufacturing in some applications while eliminating support structures and allowing components to be embedded directly within parts.

Manifest is developing the technology for production environments, with modular systems designed to integrate into manufacturing lines rather than functioning solely as prototyping tools.

Modendo | Boulder, Colorado

Modendo is developing imaging technology capable of reaching places conventional microscopes cannot easily access.

Its system sends and collects light through an ultrathin optical fiber and uses computational imaging to create high-resolution images.

The technology grew out of neuroscience research, but Modendo is now applying it to a significant industrial challenge: inspecting increasingly complex semiconductor packages.

As advanced chips become more densely packaged, defects and critical components can become buried inside structures that are difficult for traditional optical inspection systems to reach. Modendo's technology is designed to provide another way to see inside.

Phlotonics | Rochester, New York

One of the companies competing is already building from Rochester. Phlotonics is developing silicon-photonic biosensors designed to measure proteins in real time during biological processes.

The technology provides real-time, label-free protein measurement, potentially allowing researchers and manufacturers to monitor biological processes as they happen instead of waiting for samples to be analyzed afterward. The approach has potential applications in biomanufacturing, drug development and regenerative medicine.

Phlotonics has also begun moving toward commercialization. The company received a $1.1 million AIM Photonics contract in 2025 for work involving real-time monitoring during the manufacturing of stem-cell-derived insulin-producing cells.

Its presence in the cohort also demonstrates another side of Luminate's role: supporting companies already emerging from within Rochester's technology ecosystem.

Smith Displays Limited | Southampton, United Kingdom

Smith Displays Limited is developing a new architecture for augmented-reality displays based on technology it calls wavemixing.

Founded as a University of Southampton spinout, the company is working to address some of the persistent challenges surrounding AR glasses, including brightness, transparency, weight, power consumption and realistic visual depth.

The goal is to make augmented-reality displays lighter and more practical while delivering the performance required for everyday use.

Why this matters for Rochester

The companies are interesting individually. Collectively, they tell a larger business story.

Optics and photonics are enabling technologies. They sit behind products and industries that extend far beyond cameras and traditional optical systems from AI infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing to healthcare, quantum computing, defense, autonomous systems and advanced manufacturing.

That puts Rochester's longstanding expertise in optics and imaging at the intersection of several industries attracting significant investment and commercial development.

Luminate is designed to use that existing concentration of expertise as an economic development asset.

Participating companies gain access to investors and mentors, research and manufacturing resources and the broader New York Photonics cluster of more than 160 optics, photonics and imaging companies.

For Rochester, the potential value extends beyond convincing every startup to relocate its headquarters here. A California startup can source components from a Rochester manufacturer. A European company can work with local engineers. A founder can collaborate with researchers at a regional university. A growing company can eventually establish engineering, research or manufacturing operations in the region. Those relationships create additional ways for Rochester to participate in the growth of companies developing technology here and there is now a sizable Luminate portfolio behind that strategy.

Since the program launched, Luminate has invested $23 million in 85 startups. Those companies have subsequently raised another $497 million and reached a combined estimated value of approximately $725 million, according to figures released by the accelerator with the announcement of its ninth cohort.

Another major investment in Rochester's laser economy

This year's Finals also comes as Rochester begins another major effort to turn its technical expertise into commercial growth. The program will include a discussion about STELLAR, the region's new National Science Foundation-backed laser innovation initiative.

The STELLAR Engine, led by the University of Rochester, is intended to bring together companies, researchers and other partners to accelerate laser technologies and their commercialization, with applications across industries including manufacturing, healthcare, defense and communications.

That makes the conversation particularly relevant to Luminate. Both initiatives are ultimately addressing a similar economic opportunity: Rochester already has significant scientific and technical capabilities. The next question is how the region converts more of that expertise into products, companies, investment, manufacturing and jobs.

Then come the big checks

On Sept. 30, the focus shifts to the stage. Luminate Finals 2026 is sponsored by Optica as part of Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science, a technical conference bringing researchers, engineers and industry leaders in optics, photonics and imaging together in Rochester.

The event is free and open to both the general public and conference attendees, with in-person and virtual options available.

Doors at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center open at 11:30 a.m., with lunch available for in-person attendees. Programming begins at noon. Then the companies pitch. The audience votes and up to $2 million is awarded.

For Rochester's founders, executives, investors and business community, however, the more interesting question may be what happens after the checks are handed out. Ten companies came into Luminate with emerging technologies. They spent six months building connections to Rochester's business and technology ecosystem.

Finals offers the community a chance to see which technologies could become the next companies to scale and where Rochester might fit into that growth.

Luminate Finals 2026Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026Doors open: 11:30 a.m. | Program: NoonRochester Riverside Convention Center + OnlineFree to attend

Registration: Luminate Finals 2026