Three local student start-ups get $30G in funding

Three start-ups run by students at local universities netted a total of $30,000 in funding Thursday afternoon at a joint entrepreneurship competition held by Stony Brook University, Hofstra University and Farmingdale State University.

The three winning companies will go on to participate at the New York State Business Plan Competition in Albany later this month -- the first time the Long Island region has been represented -- where they could win up to $40,000 in cash for their businesses.

The students' businesses run the gamut -- SmartLine, a mobile app to help restaurants manage wait lists; INKcredible, a company making easily removable tattoo ink; and Feedies, which is developing baby bottles that help avoid gas and colic.

Feedies and INKcredible, both from Stony Brook, received $15,000 and $10,000 respectively. SmartLine, from Hofstra, took home $5,000.

Since 2005, Stony Brook has hosted the event as the Dare To Risk Entrepreneurship -- or DARE -- competition for its students. But this year, Long Island was asked to participate in the New York State Business Plan Competition, so the event was expanded to include more schools and to serve as a regional competition to determine which start-ups would compete at the state-level, said AnnMarie Scheidt, vice president for economic development at Stony Brook.

"As the program goes forward we’d like to engage all our colleagues at Long Island colleges to participate," she said.

The seed money for the local competition came from contributions from the three participating colleges, the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency and the Long Island Angel Network.