Entrepreneur Award

The Entrepreneur Award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who has created a commercially viable business within the chemical enterprise.

Recipients of the Entrepreneur award demonstrated passion, persistence and hard work by creating something where nothing existed before or improved on an exiting product or idea.

The hallmark of this contribution is impact: positive impact on people’s lives and positive impact on the economy by creating chemistry jobs that produce a significant impact on the local economy (specifically within the 6 county jurisdiction of the Rochester Local Section).

Nominations are solicited from individuals of the Rochester Local Section and local small businesses. A special judging committee selects the award recipient(s). The award is presented at the Rochester Section’s Recognition Event. Both ACS members and non-ACS members are eligible for this award.

Nature of Award

The award consists of a plaque for the awardee/company, a feature article within the Local Section’s newsletter and on the Rochester Local Section’s website with a link to the company’s website. The award will be presented at the annual Local Section’s Recognition Dinner.

Press Release for 2025 Winner

The Rochester Section of the American Chemical Society has selected Nicholas C. Davy, Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Technical Officer of Andluca, as its 2025 Entrepreneur of the Year. This award recognizes his leadership in co-founding Andluca (www.andluca.com) and advancing the development and commercialization of UV-active, transparent advanced materials. Andluca’s proprietary transparent solar technology enables self-powered smart windows, using absorbed ultraviolet (UV) light to generate electricity. The result is a self-contained, wireless window system that can be easily adopted in both new construction and retrofits, improving the energy efficiency, privacy, security, and comfort of buildings. Unlike conventional solar panels, Andluca’s solar cells harvest near-ultraviolet, high-energy photons without affecting visible light transmission. The company’s flagship product uses this UV-harvesting technology (Innovio™ Glass) to power smart home functions directly within the window, eliminating external wiring. By enabling features such as dynamic glass tinting, Andluca’s wireless smart windows can reduce building energy consumption by up to 40 percent.

Traditional smart glass requires extensive wiring and specialty installation. In contrast, Andluca’s system integrates all wiring within the window frame for a sleek, plug-and-play design. These transparent solar windows can power a range of devices, including motorized shades, dynamic glass, motion sensors, security cameras, and more. Electricity generated by the UV-harvesting glass is stored in a miniature, industrial-grade battery that provides low-voltage DC power at any time of day or night, regardless of the season. The company has successfully demonstrated their autonomous smart windows powered by visibly transparent, ultraviolet harvesting photovoltaic glass. Andluca has also developed films with UV visible features that can be seen by birds, deterring bird collisions, but are invisible to humans. Bird friendly glass is a fast-growing market, often driven by government mandates, and Andluca’s technology provides significant advantages for glass fabricators.

The award will be presented at the Rochester ACS Section’s Annual Recognition Dinner on October 16, 2025. In addition to honoring Davy’s innovative work in clean energy, it highlights the continuing importance of chemistry and materials science in Rochester’s economic legacy, which began with George Eastman’s invention of silver halide photographic film and the cameras that brought photography to the public.

Born in Houston, Texas, Davy became an Eagle Scout whose community project reflected his early commitment to environmental stewardship. His interest in sustainability and clean energy led him to pursue research in photovoltaic materials and ultimately to invent Andluca’s smart window technology. Davy earned a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin (2012) and an M.A. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University (2014), where he also completed experimental work toward a Ph.D. in Chemical and Materials Engineering (2018)

Working with Prof. Lynn Loo, Director of Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Davy focused on organic photovoltaic materials that harvest ultraviolet radiation. Their research led to a 2016 patent describing single-junction organic photovoltaic devices with high open-circuit voltages (U.S. Patent 10,476,018, 2019). Building on that foundation, Davy and Dr. Loo co-founded Andluca in 2017 to commercialize transparent UV-harvesting solar cells as integrated power sources for smart windows.

After initial development in Princeton, Andluca moved its headquarters to Eastman Business Park. Davy now leads an eight-member R&D team responsible for developing Andluca’s UV-powered smart windows, which have been featured in Nature Energy (doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.104) and The Wall Street Journal. Under his leadership, the company has built an IP portfolio with 12 issued or pending U.S. patents.

Transitioning from researcher to entrepreneur, Davy built Andluca’s business foundation by raising more than $9 million in funding, including $6.5 million in private capital, $2.5 million in competitive research grants, and $1.2 million in joint development contracts. These funds support the commercialization of Andluca’s powered glass platform and the company’s 20-plus collaborations with leading glass, window, door, and skylight manufacturers

After completing the NextCorps Luminate accelerator in 2021 and securing a $500,000 investment, Davy relocated Andluca to Rochester to take advantage of the region’s roll-to-roll manufacturing capabilities, legacy equipment, and deep technical talent pool. He has built a highly interdisciplinary team that spans chemistry, engineering, product design, and business operations. Their team focuses on product and IP development across wavelength-specific coatings, optoelectronics, and intelligent systems.

He and Andluca have earned widespread recognition, including:

• 2025 R&D Award from Glass Magazine
• Featured Startup and Speaker at the 2025 International Builders’ Show (IBS)
• Participant, National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (2025)
• Outstanding Tech Team, TechRochester GREAT Awards (2023)
• Cleantech Open Northeast Winner (2020)
• Edison Patent Award, Research & Development Council of New Jersey (2020)
• SABIC Best First PhD Publication Award (2017)
• National Science Foundation SBIR/STTR Phase I–IIB Grants (2018–2024)

He has also served as a guest lecturer for Entrepreneurship in Energy (ENE 259) at Princeton University.

More About Andluca’s Smart Glass Technology

• Andluca’s advanced materials are coated (via roll-to-roll process) onto a standard polymer interlayer. That coated interlayer is laminated to create a piece of laminated glass with our advanced materials inside
• Each lite of glass shown in the diagram is just a standard piece of glass laminated together with the interlayer in between
• Sunlight hits that glass/interlayer, power is generated and then stored in our systems which are integrated into the frame of the window
• That electricity can power different smart home features like a smart privacy shade, security cameras/sensors, dynamic (electrochromic) glass, etc.
• Our bird-friendly materials are part of the coating as well. Birds see a cross-hatch pattern (they can see in the UV portion of the light spectrum) while humans see a transparent piece of glass.