Harvard Business School Announces Rock Accelerator Teams for 2020-21
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BOSTON—Harvard Business School's Rock Center for Entrepreneurship has announced 40 teams for the 2020-2021 Rock Accelerator. Launched in 2010, the HBS Rock Center Accelerator is a highly immersive program uniquely designed for Harvard Business School student founders of early-stage startups. The focus is on building and validating a “minimum viable product (MVP)” that the teams can bring to market quickly, with a strong emphasis on developing plans for testing the MVP. The selected teams experience deep-dive coaching sessions and check-ins, feedback on their product pitches, and opportunities to pitch for seed funding. The goal is for teams to emerge from the program with a strong foundation for building or expanding a market-ready product. Recent participants in the Rock Accelerator include Juno (formerly LeverEdge), which uses group buying power to negotiate student loan rates with lenders, technicbal workforce solutions company OnRamp, Stride Funding, which offers Income Share Agreements (ISAs) for student financing, education funding, student loans, and paying for college, and EmCasa, a real-estate startup based out of Brazil which offers virtual tours and sales assistance. Each spring, the teams receive financial grants from a pool of $250,000. Team selection and funding decisions are made in close consultation with the Rock Venture Partners Program, which includes MBA students interested in the venture capital industry. The Rock Accelerator is run over two terms during the academic year and is open to second-year Harvard MBA students and their teams. At least one member of each team must be a Harvard MBA candidate. This year, the Accelerator transitioned to virtual delivery. Since 1947, the study of entrepreneurship has been a vital part of the Harvard Business School MBA program, which includes a required course in the first-year curriculum, numerous electives in the second-year curriculum, and a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem that includes the annual New Venture Competition, the Rock Accelerator Program, Rock Summer Fellows, Rock Loan Reduction, and the Rock 100. The Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, which has earned accolades as the top program for entrepreneurial studies in the nation, supports faculty and their research in the field of entrepreneurial management as well as spurs the HBS community with the energy and spirit needed for new ideas and innovations to thrive and grow. Through a community that provides support, access to content, and a gateway to entrepreneurial ecosystems everywhere, the Rock Center helps students and alumni create ventures that revolutionize in both the for-profit and social enterprise sectors. The Rock Center is led by Jodi Gernon, director, and the Rock Accelerator by Chuck Collins, associate director. The Rock Accelerator coaches for this year are Julia Austin, Marty Blue, Tom Clay, Anne Dwane, Ralph Folz, Alex Iskold, Adrien Nussenbaum, Javier Segovia, Shereen Shermak, Satish Tadikonda, and Wendy Tsu. The following are 39 of the 40 teams (one prefers to remain unnamed) in the 2020 Spring Rock Accelerator are: Adira Adira is a direct-to-consumer women’s professional footwear brand that has made the ‘go-to’ women’s work shoe. You are unstoppable, your heels should be, too. Anise Health Anise is an on-demand, culturally-competent digital mental health service that delivers end-to-end behavioral coaching, psychotherapy, and psychiatry tailored toward different cultural backgrounds. Asan Therapeutics Ananya Zutshi (MS/MBA 2021), Co-founder Asan Therapeutics is developing a drug delivery platform dedicated to making the delivery of biologics easier by leveraging novel technologies. Aspen Apothecary Founded by two BIPOC sisters, Aspen Apothecary is changing the face of fragrance. We make self-care less of a hassle with our clean, conscious, vegan CBD-infused perfumes for modern womxn. Bizbox Bizbox allows service professionals to run their business on the go. Impressive customer interactions, intuitive job management, and easy digital payments level up their professionalism and unlock efficient growth. Today it's pen and paper, cash and checks. Tomorrow it's Bizbox. Kaylee Carpenter (MBA 2021), Co-founder Convallo Bio is developing the next generation of beneficial bacteria using our novel bacteria armor to improve the health of humans, animals, and the planet. Edukita Edukita is an online English LIVE classes platform for K-12 population in Indonesia. Our mission is to be the place between school and home where young Indonesians can build meaningful skills to thrive in the modern world. EXTA (Excelling through Adversity) EXTA is a telehealth platform that provides 24/7, flexible, and convenient mental health support for athletes facing hardship. Falsetto Falsetto’s goal is to assist consumers of any digital medium or platform seamlessly determine if content can be trusted and educate how they can become better digital stewards. First90 First90 is an education and training platform for businesses that provides coaching and real-world simulations to onboard new employees. Our goal is to ensure each employee is prepared to thrive in their new role with the skills, mindsets, and relationships they need to succeed. FlashCash FlashCash is a payment platform that allows merchants to accept digital payments without hardware. GenUnity GenUnity is a civic leadership organization that supports adults’ civic learning and engagement in their local communities on the issues they are most passionate about. GenUnity delivers its unique, immersive programs in partnership with community members, organizations, and leaders experiencing the issues and locally today. GreenZone Shop like on Amazon, but with a clear conscience. GreenZone is a sustainable marketplace with a broad but selected offer of sustainable products, backed by a green logistics service. HeraldAPI HearldAPI is enabling API connectivity in the commercial insurance space. We are creating the new infrastructure needed to power the age of digital insurance for businesses.
Human Dynamics Human Dynamics transforms the way work-at-heights is done. With our patent-pending robotics system, maintenance and construction are cheaper, safer, and cleaner. IXORA Apparel IXORA provides trend-driven made-to-measure apparel for today’s young working woman. Our apparel is made-for-her body, made-for-her lifestyle, made-for-her confidence, and not made-to-stock. Jetpack AI Jetpack is AI-powered productivity for under-organized people. You should not have to spend more time thinking about what to do than getting things done. Jetpack uses natural language processing to help you effortlessly stay on top of your life. Justiexpress Justiexpress universalizes access to basic legal services at affordable prices in Latin America. KARL Inc. KARL is a platform that delivers personalized, recurring dates to couples based on their interests, budget, and availability. This allows couples to spend less time planning, and more time enjoying date night. KadaKareer KadaKareer is a one-stop career exploration platform for low-income students in the Philippines that leverages bite-sized, low bandwidth engagements to help land that first job. Kenai Market Kenai is a marketplace that connects environmentally conscious consumers to small businesses that deliver plastic-free products shipped plastic-free. Kenai offers end-to-end transparency and filterability on environmentally relevant metrics (e.g., proximity, chemical-free, etc.). Liza Liza helps Americans build their credit score, making it easier to access to affordable credit. Liza formalizes loans between family and friends to make them contribute towards the credit-builder’s score. Metric Metric helps private market investors measure and improve their portfolio’s environmental and social performance. Our software enables teams to identify and measure material ESG factors, quantify financial impact, and receive tailored improvement strategies. MMaven MMaven is a job marketplace and skills management platform for manufacturing skilled tradesmen. We provide students at manufacturing trade schools with access to more job opportunities, while providing companies quicker access to technical talent matched to roles based on skills. Nour Nour is a skin care company built on the belief that all shades of skin deserve to be valued and protected equally. We are entering the market with a line of tinted mineral-based sunscreens that will blend flawlessly with dark skin tones. Our sunscreens come in three dark shades that won’t leave an unpleasant white cast on the skin. Orientami Orientami is a digital career coaching program for high school students in Italy. Orientami’s mission is to empower new generations to craft their future, developing skills, sparking new interests, promoting excellence and innovation. Our first step to achieve this mission is to help high-school students make better university choices. Oston Oston builds machine learning models on industrial distributor sales data to generate actionable insights for manufacturers and distributors in the B2B space. Pericles Pericles provides funding for resource-constrained small businesses and law firms pursuing litigation. RESET Third Space RESET’s platform makes it easy to find, test, and build healthy habits with trusted online mental health and wellness brands. Shelly Xu Design Shelly Xu Design is the first fashion-tech startup to make beautiful, accessible, 100% zero waste designs. We enhance design appeal while saving ~55% of the cost, so that eliminating the carbon footprint in what we wear becomes a no brainer rather than a compromise. Shypyard.io Shypyard helps businesses quickly migrate to ecommerce, and only pay for the infrastructure they use when it's being used. Salvos Therapeutics Salvos is a T-cell therapy company developing cancer therapeutic products by improving T-cell functions utilizing our novel immune cell engineering platform. We are committed to enhancing T-cells to unlock the power of a patient’s immune system to fight against cancer. Skye Skye enables the first true net-zero emissions and labor responsible structures through a cloud-based climate technology platform. Our product is a new software ecosystem to measure, reduce, and offset the environmental and social impacts of construction. SpotlightAI SpotlightAI is a B2B software providing enterprises with the ability to automatically detect sensitive information, anonymize it quickly, and share it with parties that need it. Vixemble Vixemble is a computer-vision-powered video analytics SaaS tool for manual discrete manufacturing processes. Wee30 Wee30 is creating an online-to-offline fitness and lifestyle experience that leverages both localized communities and gamification for accountability. |
Mark Cautela
mcautela+hbs.edu
617-495-5143
About Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School, located on a 40-acre campus in Boston, was founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University. It is among the world's most trusted sources of management education and thought leadership. For more than a century, the School's faculty has combined a passion for teaching with rigorous research conducted alongside practitioners at world-leading organizations to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. Through a dynamic ecosystem of research, learning, and entrepreneurship that includes MBA, Doctoral, Executive Education, and Online programs, as well as numerous initiatives, centers, institutes, and labs, Harvard Business School fosters bold new ideas and collaborative learning networks that shape the future of business.