Underwater cleaning robots. Ultraviolet disinfectant. Accelerator boosts NJ tech startups

Drug-free at-home depression treatment. Underwater cleaning robots. Ultraviolet disinfectant. A much smaller portable dialysis machine.

These are some of the technologies developed at the HAX, a hub in Newark for startups looking to grow their presence in New Jersey. Known as an accelerator — meant to fast-track tech startups with a product idea into profitable companies — HAX is operated by Princeton-based SOSV, a global venture capital firm.

State and local officials and SOSV executives held a ribbon-cutting for the center on Tuesday morning.

“The accelerator experience is a process of intense, rapid, and immersive education aimed at accelerating the life cycle of young innovative companies, compressing years’ worth of learning-by-doing into just a few months,” said Ian Hathaway in a 2016 Harvard Business Review article.

HAX, a 35,000 square-feet facility near the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark’s central business district, provides startups with $250,000 of initial investment, 180 days of “hands-on collaboration,” and networking with other early stage founders.

“We've increased our likelihood that we will have the next big thing in New Jersey,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in an interview Tuesday with NorthJersey.com.

SOSV is committing to take 100 companies through the HAX program over the next five years and invest a combined $25 million in these startups, with an additional $25 million put on the table by the Murphy administration’s New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Companies are expected to eventually generate at least 2,500 new, high-paying jobs in the area and attract millions of dollars in new funding.

“We’re going to create jobs for young people in Newark — families — and put food on the table for people in Newark and in New Jersey,” Tim Sullivan, head of the NJ Economic Development Authority, said at the ribbon-cutting.

Duncan Turner, HAX’s manager director, said that in 2021, during the search for a new U.S headquarters, the company was “looking for an ecosystem that could be the birthplace of the re-industrialization of the U.S.”

“Newark really has it all,” he said.

While in the HAX program, startups have access to workplace tools such as mechanical, chemical and electrical engineering labs, 3D printing, manual metal fabrication and laser cutting.

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Partnerships with Rutgers, Princeton, NJIT

The accelerator has partnerships with several New Jersey universities — Princeton University, Rutgers University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology among them. That allows for a steady talent and workforce stream into the HAX accelerator, said Turner.

Since 2022, there have been 32 startups operating out of HAX in the company’s temporary space, which are expected to graduate from the program at the end of the year.

They’re such companies as OLI Technologies, which is aiming to develop a much smaller portable dialysis machine, according to one of its co-founders, Tom Weindl.

OLI started out of a garage in central Essex County, Weindl said, but received a $75,000 grant and $25,000 voucher from the state EDA, and a $250,000 investment from SOSV.

“You get access to the full suite of staff and all the support you could want,” he said, including support for custom circuit boards.

Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for NorthJersey.com and The Record. 

Email: munozd@northjersey.com; Twitter:@danielmunoz100

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ tech startups get boost from new HAX accelerator