Two members of Cornell’s on-campus business incubators will soon expand their businesses in Ithaca, creating local jobs and building capacity for future startups to grow in the region.
REEgen, a Cornell spinout that engineers bacteria to extract rare earth elements from industrial waste with technology licensed from Cornell, and RETRN Bio, a startup that upcycles agricultural waste into bioplastics, will both scale up at a new development on Ithaca’s South Hill.
The development, SouthWorks, was recently awarded $38 million from New York’s Regional Economic Development Council to transform the former Morse Chain Factory site into a mixed-use, adaptive reuse project. The development will include an innovation hub to retain startups in advanced manufacturing, biotechnology and agtech.
