WNY Venture Association Startup Presentation Forum September 16, 2026

All are welcome to join us on September 16 for networking and presentations by Journey To Plate and Nimble Farms. This in person event will be held at the University at Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences. Those who can't be there in person may participate via Zoom. Network, learn, and connect with fellow entrepreneurs and investors in the WNY startup community. Register and be part of this exciting event! Presenters: Journey To Plate - Swapna Palaniswamy Otte, Founder Journey To Plate is an AgTech platform for home food production, connecting households wanting to grow food with local growers seeking flexible, paid work. Founder Swapna Palaniswamy Otte, Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) Board Vice Chair, has grown food since age seven. As a former Amazon product leader and mom, backyard harvests provided vital family nutrition. During Cornell Cooperative Extension training, she saw local growers struggling to monetize seasonal skills, produce, or seedlings. While MAP and garden clubs work with these local growers to teach composting and gardening, their fixed lessons fail busy families needing doorstep convenience. Customer interviews confirmed this friction: busy parents and 50+ empty nesters caring for older parents struggled with tight schedules and setup labor. Early platform feedback directly shaped the software -flexible planting dates, clearer setup steps, custom garden naming, and local soil-testing lab locators, which launched in August 2026. Journey To Plate bridges both communities. By entering a ZIP code, households receive a microclimate plan: weather-adaptive sowing dates, frost windows, companion layouts, succession planning, rotation tracking, and care alerts. To eliminate physical friction, JTP is building a marketplace to match households with these vetted local growers for raised-bed builds, soil delivery, seedlings, and personal instruction. Journey To Plate monetizes through tiered subscriptions and double-sided marketplace commissions. Visit www.journeytoplate.com for more information. Nimble Farms - Gabe Bialkowski, Founder Nimble Farms is a Western New York-based agricultural technology company transforming how fresh food is grown and distributed. Founded as Ellicottville Greens and rebranded as Nimble Farms in 2025, the company develops and operates modular indoor farms that produce high-quality leafy greens, herbs, and specialty crops year-round using controlled-environment agriculture. Built around climate-controlled hydroponic growing systems housed in repurposed shipping containers and indoor facilities, Nimble Farms enables local food production regardless of season or geography. Its farms use renewable energy, recirculating water systems, and pesticide-free growing practices to deliver fresh produce with a reduced environmental footprint. The company currently operates multiple facilities in Buffalo and Olean and will begin construction of a facility in Alden under contract with Arc of Erie County in early November. Nimble Farms distributes products through retailers, schools, hospitals, restaurants, and other community partners across the Northeast. Through its “Locally Grown, Everywhere™” model, Nimble Farms seeks to build a distributed network of smart farms that strengthen regional food security, shorten supply chains, and provide consumers with fresher, locally grown produce. Nimble Farms will discuss its growth strategy, proprietary farming technology, retail expansion, and vision for scaling sustainable indoor agriculture across North America. For more information, visit https://nimblefarms.com