Riverhead tech startup moving to Stony Brook incubator

Buncee LLC, a Riverhead-based tech startup, will be the newest tenant at Stony Brook University's business incubator in Calverton.

The company runs a website that allows users to create multimedia presentations and share them on social media channels. Buncee has been used to create educational lesson plans and business presentations, as well as more personal displays such as fashion advice and do-it-yourself projects.

The move to Calverton will give the startup access to the expertise and advice of Stony Brook professors as well as more convenient workspace, said Buncee founder Marie Arturi. For instance, the company will be able to take advantage of a shared conference room at the incubator as it begins offering workshops for professionals using Buncee.

"As a technical company on the East End of Long Island, you don't stand much of a shot without a place like Stony Brook," Arturi said. Half of Buncee's eight employees are recent Stony Brook graduates, and Arturi said she hopes to hire more full-time workers and interns from the university's pool of students.

Buncee's website is currently in beta, or test mode, and will launch officially within the month, she said. The team is finalizing a monetization model that will allow paid users access to more features.

The idea for Buncee came to Arturi in 2010, when she wanted a convenient way to send personalized thank-you cards to people she met as head of the nonprofit Daniella Maria Arturi Foundation. The organization supports finding a cure for the rare blood disorder Diamond Blackfan anemia and is named after Arturi's daughter, who died 18 years ago because of treatment complications from the disease.

The Calverton incubator, which opened in 2005, houses about eight tech companies and has a side focus on agriculture and food businesses. An Agriculture Consumer Science Center opened at the space last year and now serves about 30 companies, said Calverton incubator director Monique Gablenz.