Column by Martin Fedorko
For more than a decade, venture capital largely centered on software.
Capital flowed toward businesses with low overhead, near-zero marginal cost and the promise of rapid scale through code alone. That era produced enormous outcomes. It reshaped the economy, created major winners, and trained an entire generation of investors to look for businesses that could grow fast without touching the physical world too much.
But it also left a meaningful part of the American economy outside the center of the venture conversation. Businesses tied to manufacturing, logistics, physical infrastructure, hardware and production processes often fell outside the pattern many investors were trained to recognize. Even when those businesses had real strengths, they were often viewed as too operationally complex, too capital intensive or simply not venture-like enough.
That is starting to change.
The next wave of venture-backed innovation is increasingly tied to the physical economy. AI may be the headline, but AI at scale requires infrastructure underneath it. That means compute, energy, cooling, industrial systems and the supply chains that support them. It also means adjacent opportunities in defense, aerospace, robotics, biotech, advanced manufacturing and the technologies that make those sectors move. Add in reshoring, tariff pressure and a growing national focus on domestic capability, and the market is shifting in a meaningful way.
Investors who spent the last decade avoiding anything with a production process are now looking much more seriously at companies that make real products in real facilities.
That matters for Pennsylvania. And it matters especially for Central Pennsylvania.
This region has been saying the same thing for generations: we make things.
For a long time, that identity was treated like a legacy story. Important culturally, but not always relevant to where venture capital was going. Today, it looks much more like an advantage. The next cycle of innovation will not be built on software alone. It will be built on a physical layer that has to be designed, manufactured, powered, moved and integrated into the real world. Regions that understand production, supply chains and industrial execution are no longer on the edge of that story. They are closer to the center of it.
Pennsylvania has the ingredients
· World-class research institutions
· A deep manufacturing base
· Technical talent
· Industrial know-how
· Strong universities
· Resilient founders
· A cost structure and mid-Atlantic footprint that compare favorably with many coastal markets
What has been missing is not raw potential. It is a more coordinated system for turning that potential into repeatable outcomes.
Investors cannot back what they do not see. Founders cannot waste time navigating fragmented systems. Universities need better pathways from research to market. And regions like ours cannot afford to stay siloed if we want to attract the depth of capital that actually moves the needle.
Serious money attracts serious money.
That principle matters more than ever in a moment like this. Market shifts do not reward regions simply for having assets. They reward regions that can organize those assets.
KIC as coordination layer
That is where the Keystone Innovation Collaborative becomes important.
KIC is not based on the idea that Pennsylvania needs another isolated program. It is based on the idea that Pennsylvania needs a better coordination layer. A statewide system that helps founders, investors, universities and corporate partners move with greater clarity and less friction. Its role is to connect discoveries, founders, investors and partners through a more intentional structure so opportunity can move faster and more effectively.
That matters even more in sectors tied to this next market shift. Founders building in advanced manufacturing, robotics, biotech, industrial software, infrastructure or other hardware-adjacent categories do not just need capital. They need:
· Access to the right operators
· Facilities and validation pathways
· Pilot opportunities
· University relationships
· Strategic partners
Universities need a better path from research to market. Investors need confidence that what they are seeing has been pressure-tested. Corporate partners need an easier way to engage with emerging technologies before they are fully mature. None of that happens reliably in a fragmented system. It requires structure, trust and a platform designed to move ideas from insight to venture creation with speed and discipline.
Why the timing matters
The market is shifting toward areas where Pennsylvania is structurally stronger than many people realize. Pennsylvania companies are increasingly proving that. The capital base is strengthening. And the connective infrastructure needed to help ideas move faster and farther is beginning to come into view. The upcoming KIC launch event is one visible sign that more of these pieces are starting to move together.
The next venture cycle will not look exactly like the last one. It will be more physical. More operational. More connected to production, movement, infrastructure and real-world execution. In other words, it will look more like Pennsylvania.
The real question is whether Pennsylvania is willing to build the kind of system this moment demands. Not just more energy. Not just more ambition. A system that gives founders a clearer path, gives investors stronger signal, and gives research and industry a better way to move together.
That is the opportunity now.
Pennsylvania already has the talent. It already has the industrial base. It already has the research capacity. What it needs is stronger coordination and a better mechanism for turning those strengths into repeatable outcomes.
If that starts to happen at scale, Pennsylvania will not simply benefit from this next wave of innovation. It will become the place best built to lead it.
Martin Fedorko is managing partner of White Rose Ventures, a York-based venture capital firm focused on fueling early-stage innovation, and interim executive director of the Keystone Innovation Collaborative.
Executives Insights is a recurring feature from biznewsPA. It provides local business executives and leaders a platform for sharing advice and perspective with the business community of Central Pennsylvania. If you are interested in contributing an executive insight, email newsletters@biznewsPA.com.
