massachusetts
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The Payroll Company That Grew Up by Buying the Neighborhood
ConnectPay bet that small businesses still want a human on the phone, not a support ticket - then bought dozens of local payroll shops to build a company around that promise.
The Solar Company That Bet on the Buildings Everyone Else Skipped
Isaac Baker and Ben Underwood built a solar company around the customers the industry finds too poor or too complicated. Nearly a decade in, the affordable-housing rooftops are paying them back.
HomeWorks Energy, Inc.
HomeWorks Energy built a sizable climate business around an unglamorous truth: before a house can go electric, somebody has to find the drafts, explain the rebates and do the work.
Aeronaut Brewing Company
Aeronaut Brewing Company is a Somerville, Massachusetts craft brewery founded in 2014 by three grad-school roommates who brought MIT and Cornell science backgrounds to beer. Known for propagating its own house-cultured yeast and experimental recipes, Aeronaut pairs adventurous ales and lagers with a Somerville taproom that doubles as a food hall, live-music venue and community hub. In 2024 it merged with Dorchester Brewing Company under a new parent, Tasty Liquid Alliance.
LeveragePoint Innovations
LeveragePoint is a Boston-area B2B SaaS company that helps enterprises quantify, communicate, and capture the economic value of their products. Spun out of Monitor Group's Strategic Pricing practice in 2009, its cloud platform turns static spreadsheets and slide decks into interactive value propositions and ROI stories that sales teams use to justify higher prices and win more deals. It serves manufacturing, specialty chemicals, high tech, healthcare, and software companies, and is extending into value marketing and AI-assisted value modeling.
Papa Gino's
Papa Gino's is a New England pizzeria chain known for its thin-crust pizza, pasta, and subs. Founded in East Boston in 1961 by Italian immigrant Michael Valerio and his wife Helen as a by-the-slice shop called Piece O' Pizza, it grew into a regional institution across Massachusetts and neighboring states. After a 2018 bankruptcy that shrank the chain dramatically, it was bought by Wynnchurch Capital and now operates roughly 78-79 locations, leaning on its New England roots and a 2026 partnership with Patriots quarterback Drake Maye to win back fans.
Blue Oak Pharmaceuticals
Blue Oak Pharmaceuticals is a Waltham, Massachusetts biotech founded in 2016 to discover the next generation of drugs for brain disorders. Led by neurobiologist and former Eli Lilly and Sunovion executive Tom Large, the company designs novel, CNS-focused 'privileged chemotypes' and pairs them with systems-neurobiology behavioral assays and AI to hunt first-in-class small molecules for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and treatment-resistant depression. Its work runs through partnerships with phenotypic-screening firm PsychoGenics and AI drug-design company Exscientia.
Regenacy Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Regenacy Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing oral, isoform-selective histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors to restore normal protein function. Spun out in 2016 from the assets of Acetylon Pharmaceuticals after Celgene's acquisition, Regenacy's lead drug ricolinostat (ACY-1215) is a selective HDAC6 inhibitor in clinical development for painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy and other peripheral neuropathies, with an additional portfolio of HDAC1,2 inhibitors targeting blood diseases and cognitive disorders.