WNY Impact Investment Fund makes $300,000 investment into The Rookery

The Western New York Impact Investment Fund is excited to announce a $300,000 investment into The Rookery, a Buffalo-based medical device commercialization startup.

The Rookery is led by a team of successful medical device entrepreneurs, including CEO Blane Larson, who was part of an acquisition by the Western New York company Greatbatch Inc. and contributed to their expansion into the finished medical device space in Minnesota. In 2012, he departed Greatbatch to work for Resolution Medical, a company founded by a small group of Western New York engineers operating from a Minneapolis garage. They built Resolution Medical into a force for finished medical device commercialization, growing it to hundreds of employees at a Minnesota factory before before its acquisition by a private equity firm in 2021.

The Rookery will follow a similar business model in an industry where there is tremendous demand for commercialization expertise. The firm will support other medical device startups from their earliest stages through the regulatory approval process, which involves everything from R&D consultation through prototyping and manufacturing.

The company is based in the Red Shed building on Northland Avenue, which is the site of a growing manufacturing campus on Buffalo’s East Side. The Rookery’s long-term plan is to expand into adjacent facilities as its business grows.

The WNY Impact Investment Fund makes place-based social impact investments in Western New York, with a rigorous due diligence process which separately analyzes potential social impact and commercial potential.

Led by founding CEO Tom Quinn, the Fund has raised more than $20 million to deploy into innovative companies in its footprint. To date, the Fund has made 26 investments into 16 companies totaling $13.45 million.

The Rookery deal represents another exciting neighborhood revitalization project in Western New York. The Fund was an early investor in Viridi, a lithium ion battery company that is revitalizing a formerly moribund automotive factory on the East Side and is introducing innovative workforce models that turn it into a true agent of positive change in Buffalo. The Fund also invested last year in Top Seedz, which brought its manufacturing to a formerly empty bundling in downtown Buffalo and employs an incredibly diverse workforce through its partnership with Journey’s End Refugee Services.

“From its inception, the WNY Impact Investment Fund has played a catalytic force in cutting-edge projects that are dedicated to making Buffalo a better place to live and work,” Quinn said. “The Rookery has a world-class team that has already proven they can build a similar business, and they are poised to make Buffalo’s East Side an epicenter of medical device commercialization. We’re excited to invest at this important juncture so that The Rookery can quickly capitalize on its opportunity.”

The Rookery has already lined up a handful of clients, and those startups will grow with the company through successive stages of commercialization. The company expects to have 30 to 50 employees within three years, by which time they will be ready to expand their physical footprint into nearby buildings.

The company has forged a partnership with nearby Northland Workforce Training Center, which will train workers for The Rookery’s distinct needs.

“Medical device commercialization is a highly specialized niche and there simply aren’t enough vertically integrated companies that can support startups through the entire process,” Larson said. “We can’t wait to alleviate this latent demand and start using the abundant talent and technological backbone that Buffalo provides as a launchpad to support some of the most innovative companies in the world.”

The Rookery is backed by Egret Healthcare Ventures, a Buffalo-based firm formed to invest in transformative medical device commercialization in Buffalo. Egret founders include a host of well-known civic leaders, including chairman William Maggio, CEO Matt Colpoys, corporate relations officer Mike Hughes, general counsel Brian Bocketti and chief scientific officer Rick Ducharme.

“Egret was formed around the belief that Buffalo has the attributes to be a national leader in medical device innovation,” Maggio said. “The Rookery is a step toward actualizing that mission with a significant business opportunity in a strategic section of Buffalo’s East Side. With Egret and the WNY Impact Investment Fund working together, we believe this is a model of how collaborative partners can build transformative projects in Buffalo.”

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ABOUT THE WESTERN NEW YORK IMPACT INVESTMENT FUND: The Western New York Impact Investment Fund is a for-profit, place-based impact investment fund. Its innovative model has been featured recently in publications ranging from Forbes to The Foundation Review. Since late 2017, the Fund has invested more than $13 million in 16 regional organizations. Each of its deals is considered through an impact investing framework, meaning the commercial upside is weighed equally alongside the potential social impact in Western New York. The Fund has raised more than $20 million since its inception to deploy in support of companies in the community, including the recent closure of $12.45 million from new and existing investors. For more information, visit www.wnyimpact.com.