The basics:

• NJx Venture Summit in Skillman draws 303 registrants, up about 30% yoy
• Nearly 40 startups pitched across five industry tracks
• Investors, founders, ecosystem partners connected throughout day
• AI, cybersecurity, energy innovation emerge as major themes

From high school founders pitching cybersecurity software to entrepreneurs developing next-generation nuclear energy, AI-powered business tools and next-generation consumer products, New Jersey’s innovation ecosystem was on full display July 8 at the biannual NJx Venture Summit in Skillman.

Co-hosted by 1435 Capital Management at the Montgomery Innovation Hub and Venture X Skillman, NJBIZ was on the scene. This year’s event attracted 303 registrants, with more than 87% turning out, according to organizers.

Attendance figures increased approximately 30% from last year’s summit, reflecting growing participation from startups, investors and ecosystem partners.

The NJx Venture Summit featured approximately 40 startup presentations across five industry tracks. The program also offered investor panels, keynote presentations and networking opportunities designed to connect founders with venture capital firms, angel investors and industry leaders.

Presenters of the event included Citrin Cooperman, New Jersey Economic Development Authority, Startup Grind Princeton, Cogent Connections, Montgomery Innovation Hub, 1435 Capital, Venture X and Leader Bank.

The summit also featured investor organizations and ecosystem partners, such as Tech Council Ventures, Techstars, NJ Angels, JumpStart NJ Angel Network, Alumni Ventures, Harvard Business School Alumni Angels Association, TiE New Jersey, TiE Silicon Valley, Family Office Advisory Services, Pranatech, Aventurine Partners, Builds Bio+, as well as representatives from Somerset and Middlesex counties.

An expanding audience

Speaking with NJBIZ, 1435 Managing Partner Ben Jen said the ecosystem growth is evident not only in attendance, but also in the breadth of participants.

“There’s definitely a lot more activity,” he said. “We have a lot more startups, a lot more investors, a lot more people from the ecosystem,” Jen told NJBIZ. “I think it’s growing.”

Jen said broader participation – from state agencies and financial institutions to angel networks and venture investors – reflects the continued evolution.

“It’s moments like these that we think we are building in a positive direction for both the future of our youth and creating innovative opportunities for startups to foster, experiment with concepts and potentially grow them into a viable startup,” he told NJBIZ.

Jen said ModGuard reflects that vision. Edward Chang, Darren Kapturski, Ryan Norouzi and Ryan Soudkhah, students at Bergen County Technical High School in Paramus, created the cybersecurity startup during the NJx AI Summer Hackathon — held just weeks before the NJx summit.

It’s moments like these that we think we are building in a positive direction for both the future of our youth and creating innovative opportunities for startups …
—Ben Jen, managing partner, 1435 Capital Management

The pair developed a desktop application that deep-scans game modifications and URLs, including files hidden inside game mods. It looks for malware before players launch a game, addressing cybersecurity threats targeting millions of gamers.

After winning first place at the hackathon, Norouzi and Soudkhah earned the opportunity to present their company before investors and business leaders at the Venture Summit.

Jen also pointed to Massachusetts-based Leader Bank’s participation as an example of the summit’s expanding regional reach.

Connecting the dots

For entrepreneurs unfamiliar with the event, he said the summit is designed to create meaningful networks.

“If you’re looking to connect with other investors, connect with other innovators, it’s a great place to meet others,” Jen told NJBIZ.

Throughout the day, entrepreneurs demonstrated products at exhibit tables and startups pitched across five industry tracks (covering consumer packaged goods, artificial intelligence, health and technology innovation). Attendees also moved between sessions on fundraising, startup valuations, angel investing, the New Jersey AI Hub, government engagement and AI adoption before gathering for an evening networking reception.

The NJx Venture Summit brought together founders, investors, corporations, universities, government agencies and service providers. The nexus of roles illustrates how entrepreneurs can tap into support ranging from early-stage funding and mentorship to public-sector resources and regional partnerships.

A ‘Keurig for ice cream’

Among the companies drawing attention was Massachusetts-based ColdSnap, a 1435 Capital portfolio company. Its countertop appliance produces frozen treats on demand using single-serve pods.

Founder Matt Fonte said the idea began during bedtime conversations with his daughters, when the family would invent new products together. “One day my daughter said, ‘Dad, let’s invent a machine to make ice cream at home,'” Fonte recalled to NJBIZ. “I said, ‘Well, they already exist.’ She said, ‘Why don’t we have one?’ I said, ‘Because they stink.'”

The concept eventually evolved into what Fonte describes as a “Keurig for ice cream,” eliminating many of the hassles associated with traditional home ice cream makers.

Currently, the company is preparing to scale at its 45,000-square-foot factory and production facility in Billerica, Mass.

“I thought it could be big,” Fonte explained. “People love ice cream. I have a lot of patents. And I kind of figured out that there’d be an opportunity here to patent the technology, if we could pull it off.

“We’re on the fifth version of our machine and we have 127 issued patents. Now, we’re just looking to commercially scale. And I think it’s going to be a really big business, so I’m excited about it.”

ColdSnap conducted demonstrations throughout the day, including for this correspondent, who sampled ice cream produced on demand by the company’s countertop appliance. (Watch the accompanying video to see the machine in action.) ColdSnap also makes frozen lattes, protein shakes and frozen cocktails.

The verdict: delicious.

Off the grid

On the other end of the spectrum, Princeton-based Defense Physics Laboratory also exhibited.

The company is developing the Ultralight Modular Reactor. The UMR is a mobile, subcritical nuclear power platform designed to provide continuous power where grid electricity is unavailable, delayed or otherwise impractical.

With surging electricity demand and concerns about grid capacity dominating conversations across industries, the company focuses on providing power where projects and missions can’t afford to wait.

During his pitch, CEO Howard Oh said, “We’re making a new patent-pending technology and nuclear power platform designed for deployment in missions beyond the grid. So the energy problem we see is that the United States is envisioning doing great things in the next decade and we need energy, but we are not ready for it.

“And also to deliver those energy, we need grid, but there are places and missions that grid cannot be delivered or installed, and also for those missions we are heavily relying on diesel.”

In an interview with NJBIZ, Oh said the company aims to fill the gap between today’s power demands and tomorrow’s energy infrastructure. “It’s great that there’s a nuclear initiative that we want to build and expand nuclear power plants, but that’s decades and decades away,” he said. “That’s where we step into, we bring in fast deployable, and something that doesn’t need years of construction just for deploying the power.”

Oh said the company’s modular platform can be transported where it’s needed. The mobility brings energy to the forefront for applications ranging from construction sites and critical infrastructure to military missions requiring resilient, mobile power.

“We’re trying to solve filling the energy gap,” said Oh.

Taking the AI journey

Artificial intelligence was a key theme throughout the summit.

During his presentation, “The AI Adoption Journey,” MTap and Hureka Technologies founder Roopak Gupta encouraged businesses to think beyond using AI simply to automate tasks. Instead, he suggested viewing it as a long-term business transformation.

“Your AI adoption journey should look like AI assisted to AI enabled to AI native. And if you are a company who has been a startup, as a startup, usually it takes you about 12 months to put all the processes to become AI native. The more established you are, the more time you will take to become AI native. It’s a slow journey, but has to be right with all the stage gates,” said Gupta.

Gupta also challenged business leaders to shift their thinking from cost savings to growth opportunities.

“You’ve got to start thinking out of the box that something that we are not doing today, but will help us grow. Can AI do it? That is a mindset change,” he stressed.

Looking beyond the C-suite

The summit’s keynote address came from Sam Caucci, founder and CEO of Newark-based 1Huddle. His presentation, “Winning the Talent Game: How Great Teams Don’t Waste Talent, They Win With It,” challenged business leaders to rethink workforce development in an era increasingly shaped by automation and artificial intelligence.

Drawing on his experiences working with major employers, Caucci recounted the story of a longtime hotel housekeeping employee who was promoted after leadership discovered she had independently mastered restaurant operations through the company’s training platform.

“Sometimes you’ve got to check the break room,” Caucci said. He noted building a great team requires companies to identify all of the talent within their company — not just in the C-suite.

He argued that tomorrow’s highest-performing organizations will succeed not by simply doing more with fewer employees, but by identifying and developing the talent they already have.

“The high-performing organizations of tomorrow are going to do a great job, not a good job, at identifying the talent they have, inventorying the skill mix that exists, and repositioning talent for jobs as they change,” he said.

More than a showcase of startups, the NJx Venture Summit illustrates how New Jersey’s innovation economy continues to mature and evolve. By bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, universities, government agencies and service providers under one roof, the event demonstrates that successful startups aren’t built by founders alone, but by the strength of the ecosystem supporting them.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:41 a.m. July 17, 2026, to include two additional ModGuard teammates, Edward Chang and Darren Kaptursk.