TechLaunch founder and angel investor Mario Casabona was honored last evening as the 2014 NJ Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year in a ceremony held at the mansion on the Florham Park campus at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
This was the second annual ceremony for the Immigrant Entrepreneur Awards, a coalition of county and bi-national chambers of commerce, business and advocacy groups who work together to build awareness of the importance of the immigrant population to New Jersey’s economy and to the national economy as a whole.
Mario Casabona arrived in the United States from Italy at the age of five, the only child of his parents, Angelo (a barber) and Erminia (a seamstress). He became an electrical engineer and spent his entire career in NJ, creating his own defense technologies company Electro-Radiation Inc. which, 22 years later was sold to Honeywell International in 2004.
Later, Casabona formed Casabona Ventures to invest in fledgling startups, and then became the Chairman of Jumpstart New Jersey Angel Network for four years before creating TechLaunch, NJ’s premier technology accelerator, formed in collaboration with the NJ Economic Development Authority (EDA), and NJ Angel investors. In three programs, TechLaunch has launched 26 technology focused companies into the marketplace.
FinSMEs
10/12/2014