BOSTON—Harvard Business School's Rock Center for Entrepreneurship has announced 35 teams for the 2021-2022 Rock Accelerator.
Launched in 2010, the HBS Rock Accelerator is a program designed for second year Harvard Business School students who are 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. Teams were selected in close consultation with the Rock Venture Partners Program, which includes MBA students interested in the venture capital industry.
Recent participants in the Rock Accelerator include GenUnity, which supports adults’ civic learning and engagement in their local communities on the issues they are most passionate about; fashion-tech startup Shelly Xu Design, which creates fashionable, accessible, 100% zero waste clothing designs; and KadaKareer, a career exploration platform for low-income students in the Philippines that leverages bite-sized, low bandwidth engagements to help land their first job.
The Rock Accelerator is designed to offer 1:1 coaching and peer support for teams as they navigate the challenging tasks of launching their startup, bringing in serial entrepreneurs such as Marla Beck, CEO and founder of Blue Mercury, Chris Homer, co-founder of Thredup, Donna Levin, cofounder of Care.com and current CEO of Babson College’s Arthur M. Blank School for Entrepreneurship. Teams in the cohort actively solve problems ranging from optimizing retail inventory, to connecting telehealth providers with external vendors, to smooth the support process for online care, to developing a new approach to women’s healthcare in Mexico.
The 35 teams in the 2021-22 Rock Accelerator are:
Allo Health
Hay Teng Wong (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Esther Chiah, Co-Founder
Allo Health is building Southeast Asia's first all-in-one platform for the next generation of family caregivers.
Anise Health
Alice Zhang (MBA 2021), Co-Founder
Nisha Desai (MBA 2021), Co-Founder
A culturally-informed digital mental health platform for Asian Americans.
BillMeter
Shachar Hirshberg (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Uri Preminger, Co-Founder
We solve usage-based billing. Helping companies translate billions of data points to a single bill per negotiated terms. We enable pricing of packages and pay-as-you-go, handling packages overuse, conveying the usage to the end-customer, and more.
Chord
Olutosin Sonuyi (MBA 2022), Founder
Chord was built to remove the barriers to creating great communities—to make them more real, more impactful, and more valuable to their members– all while saving the people who manage them time and energy.
Darby
Charlotte Lawson (MBA 2022), Co-Founder and CEO
Mariya Rivkin (MBA 2022), Co-Founder and Head of Product
Jackson Stone, Co-Founder and Head of Business Development
Darby is the missing technology layer between virtual-first clinicians and last-mile vendors. We make hybrid care happen.
Fairshare
Rachel Drapper (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
David Uhlmann, Co-Founder
Fairshare is an app to help households record, evaluate and allocate time spent on chores to make ‘invisible’ unpaid domestic labor visible, reduce relationship resentment, and diminish gender inequity in homes.
Gaia Ai
Michael Kelly (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Peter McHale, Co-Founder
Matt Carpenter, 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.
Garage Mobility
Gwanygha’a Gana (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Armand Cedric Foudjet, Co-Founder
Tech enabled Autozone for Africa.
Hibiscus Monkey
Naina Mehta (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Roshni Mehta, Co-Founder
Mona Mehta, Co-Founder
Your face makes up only five percent of your skin—the remaining 95 percent is on the body. Yet we put such little time and effort on bodycare vs facecare. We want to be India’s first body specialist brand. One that is powered by plants & ancient wellness rituals. It's time to put body center stage.
Hive Health
Camille Ang (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Jiawen Tang, Co-Founder
Digital health insurance for SMBs in the Philippines
Hue Beauty
Janvi Shah (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Nicole Clay (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Sylvan Guo (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Hue Beauty is a beauty tech platform that helps makeup shoppers find the perfect shade matches for their skin tone through our “Hue ID” technology and community of “Skin Twins“ - people who share the same skin tone.
Intellipay
Joseph Kim (MBA 2022), Founder
Use the right payment method. Every time.
Jasper Cocktails
Vanessa Royle (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Mariah Wood (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Nicole Delany (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Jasper Cocktails is a creator of non-alcoholic cocktails for drinkers and non-drinkers alike.
La Huerta de Elisa
Rosalino Molina (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Roxana Antohi, Co-Founder
Angel Espinosa, Co-Founder
Healthy baby food in Mexico.
Larsen
Alex Benoit (MBA 2022), Founder
Building stronger teams through continuous feedback.
Lime Therapeutics
Shardule Shah (MBA 2022), Founder
Imagine a world without cancer, Alzheimer's, and ALS. That's what Lime Therapeutics is aiming for. Our patented platform is discovering new medicines to target lipid metabolism, a key growth pathway for cancers and neurodegenerative diseases.
Maison XO
Ryan Yu (MBA 2022), Founder
The gift of good taste. Maison XO designs and manufactures umami-rich foods that add depth and complexity to meals of celebration. Inspired by the Cantonese tradition of gifting XO sauce, Maison XO transforms delicious food into profound acts of gratitude.
Mandala
Tarun Galagali (MBA 2022), Founder and Organizer
Mental health platform built by & developed for the BIPOC community.
Mudango
Andres Ossa (MBA 2022), Founder
Mudango is an on-demand logistic tech startup with operations in Mexico, Colombia and Chile. It is an end-to-end marketplace that combines an array of user-friendly tech products (charming bots + really cool algorithms), with a network of logistic partners like truck owners, moving companies, storage companies and freight services operators. This interconnection allows users to seamlessly book, coordinate and execute a complex move in an easy, 100% percent online and stress-free way. Moving stuff in Latam is hard. We are here to help.
Night Inn
Rena Ogura (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Mike Wolkon, Co-Founder
Ryan Lane, Co-Founder
Night Inn brings togetherness to the home by serving as a marketplace for talented hospitality professionals to deliver exceptional experiences to consumers in the comfort of the consumer's home or office.
PainFix
Kirsten Soong (MBA 2022), Founder
At PainFix, our mission is to provide safe, affordable, and accessible healthcare solutions to people in underserved communities who battle chronic pain by providing a community-driven digital platform with personalized and clinically proven alternative treatments.
Pathlight
Lizzie Matusov (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Amir Ghowsi, Co-Founder
Pathlight is the career credit score for incoming software engineers. We give candidates a weekly score update with three actionable feedback items to improve their hirability.
PetterPaws
Cagla Kaymaz (MBA 2022), Founder
PetterPaws empowers pet parents to train their dogs with ease and convenience by building a mobile-first dog training product that is customizable and bite-sized.
PicoGreens
Jesse Lou (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Max Schubert, Co-Founder
PicoGreens is engineering and cultivating single-cellular crop plants that produce simple food ingredients—1,000x faster, on a fraction of arable land, with stellar resource—for a climate resilient food system.
Pienna
Giovanna Abramo (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Lorena Ostos, Co-Founder
Plenna is an O2O (online to offline) platform that provides affordable and comprehensive care to women in Mexico.
ProtectEd
Jake Ahle (MBA 2022), COO, Director of Client Relations
Thomas Ankenbauer, CFO, CTO
Peter Facchini, Co-Founder and CEO
Tim Cahalin, Co-Founder, Chief of Product
ProtectED makes protective furniture for classrooms and workplaces that provides critical and immediate protection against active shooter violence and domestic terrorism
Riinx
Anna Trepekli (MBA 2022), Founder
Safe, transparent and affordable access to preventative botox and fillers
Syrup
Ferdinand Stockmann (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
James Theuerkauf (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Syrup.tech is a decision-support engine for inventory optimization. Our goal is to empower brands and retailers to be both more sustainable and more profitable by reducing excess inventory and waste.
Tabato
Taro Tomiya (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Daniel Baiz Cabal (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
A B2B manufacturing marketplace that connects underutilized Latin American manufacturers with clients in need of better prices, quality, and shorter lead times, while increasing trust and transparency by facilitating the outdated procurement process.
The Cyclist House
Francisco Barroso (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Dmitri Hennion, Co-Founder
Christoph Falter, Co-Founder
Europe's largest and most trusted source of premium pre-owned bikes.
The Equity Network LLC
Kristina Hu (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Shelby Schrier (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Olivia Melendez (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Isa Oliveres (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
The Equity Network helps Black, Latinx, and Native American college students and recent grads book free 1-on-1 conversations with advisors in their dream jobs.
The Goods
Isabelle Lubin (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Jake Benedict (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
What if canned food was made by humans instead of machines? The Goods is waking up the sleepy canned goods aisle with a collection of elevated pantry essentials. We are delivering modern flavor profiles and real, clean ingredients with integrity to food-conscious consumers.
The Only Convoy (TOC)
Ashley McCray (MBA 2022), Founder
86% of Americans are unhappy. We are on a mission to change that! The Only Convoy (TOC) is a digital platform that helps high achievers personalize their happiness.
Transcera
Hunter Goble (MBA 2022), Co-Founder
Wayne Lencer, Co-Founder
Justin Wolfe, Co-Founder
Transcera is transforming chronic disease treatment through a new approach to biologic medicines. With our novel lipid-based platform, we are turning injections into pills and delivering large molecule drugs to previously unreachable tissues.
Upscale.ai (TradeX)
Abhishek Chandwani (MBA 2022), Founder
Upscale enables your sales and growth teams to discover knowledge and insights from enterprise wide structured and unstructured data. Best part? It's literally as simple as speaking into a 'command line.'
For more information on all of the teams, coaches, and programs please visit the HBS Rock Accelerator Program page.
