umass-lowell
(2)
Ram Sudireddy
Ram Sudireddy is the founder, chairman, president and CEO of Bento, a Boston-based dental benefits platform he started in 2017 after concluding that dental insurance, as sold, was structurally broken. Before Bento he built and sold three technology companies - Cimaron Communications to AMCC, CHiL Semiconductor to International Rectifier, and Mustbin to LifeSite - and chaired Sanovi through its acquisition by IBM. He is a semiconductor architect by training who now runs a dental payments company, which is the kind of career pivot that only makes sense if you spend a long weekend reading your family's EOBs.
Z-Polymers
Z-Polymers is a Lowell, Massachusetts materials science company that emerged from the UMass Lowell Innovation Hub to build Tullomer, a PFAS-free liquid crystal super-polymer spun into ultra-fine fibers and 3D-printing filament. Founded in 2021 by materials scientist Dr. Michael Zimmerman, the company claims strength up to four times that of PEEK - and up to six times stronger than steel at a sixth of the weight - while printing on desktop machines without annealing. Its materials target aerospace, defense, medical devices, energy, and functional fabrics, and in 2026 it secured a strategic seed investment and joint development agreement with Japan's Kureha Corporation.