Harvard Business School’s Rock Center Announces 15 Teams for Rock Accelerator Program
The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship
BOSTON—Harvard Business School’s (HBS) Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship has announced fifteen teams that have been selected for the Rock Accelerator. Each team has been awarded $5,000 in the first round of funding from a pool of $150,000 for the 2017-18 school year. Launched in 2010, the HBS Arthur Rock Center Accelerator is a highly immersive program designed specifically for Harvard Business School student founders of early stage startups. The focus is on building and validating a “minimum viable product” that the teams can bring to market quickly, with a strong emphasis as well on developing plans for testing it. The chosen teams experience deep-dive coached 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. The Rock Accelerator is run over two terms during the academic year. Forty-four teams submitted entries this term for consideration. The competition was open to second-year Harvard MBA students and their teams. At least one member of each team must be a Harvard MBA candidate. The teams were selected by a panel of HBS students interested in venture capital who are part of the Rock Venture Partners program, where practicing venture capitalists provide in-person mentoring and advice to HBS student entrepreneurs. This program is led by Senior Lecturer Jeffrey Bussgang and Rock Center staff members. Past participants in the Rock Accelerator include greeting card maker LovePop (lovepopcards.com), personal helpers Hello Alfred (helloalfred.com), and Getaway (getaway.house), which provides escapes to custom tiny cabins in the woods. “The Rock Accelerator helps HBS students focus on testing their value proposition and ensuring that their tests validate their assumptions,” said Jodi Gernon (MBA 1991), Director of the Rock Center. “It’s exciting to see these students apply the advice they receive, build their skills, network with investors, and gain confidence as they launch these new enterprises. Last year’s HBS New Venture Competition winner, Veho technologies, an innovative package-delivery service, was fostered in the Rock Accelerator.” 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 fifteen teams in the 2017 Fall Rock Accelerator (with their founders) are: Abridge News (Laura Carpenter, MBA 2018) Alpha Vantage (Olivier Porte and Steve Z., both MBA 2018) BundleUp (Aditi Kumar, MBA 2018) Coverd (Christie Horvath, MBA 2018) EmCasa (Gustavo Vaz, MBA 2018; Lucas Cardozo; Gustavo Saiani) Endorse (Brandon Freiberg, MBA 2018; Eugene Chung) Faktor (Doug Shultz, MBA 2018) FastFloss (Todd Joseph, MBA 2018) Frank (Gorick Ng, MBA 2018) FullFill (Vicente Fauro, MBA 2018; Lyrisse Van Der Mescht; Mario Dominguez) Lazy Bear Tea (Drew Fink and Erik Ornitz, both MBA 2018; Daniela Uribe) Myos (Rich Horgan, MBA 2018; Angela Lek) Nalagenetics (Levana Sani, MBA 2018; Astrid Irwanto) trey (Rebecca Feickert, Regan Rau, and Timothy Erps, all MBA 2018; Ivana Roulhac; Brian Reynolds) Waypoint (Varun Mani, MBA 2018; Sara Remsen; Umar Arshad) |
Jim Aisner
jaisner+hbs.edu
617-495-6157
Cullen Schmitt
cschmitt+hbs.edu
617-495-6155
ABOUT THE ROCK CENTER
The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship was created through the generosity of prominent venture capitalist Arthur Rock (MBA 1951), who donated $25 million to Harvard Business School in 2003 to support the entrepreneurship faculty and their research, fellowships for MBA and doctoral students, symposia and conferences, and outreach efforts to extend the impact of the School's extensive work in this field. HBS offered the country's first business school course in entrepreneurship in 1947; today, more than 50 percent of our alumni, 10 to 15 years after graduation, describe themselves as entrepreneurs, creating ventures in a quest to change the world. The Rock Center also works closely with the HBS California Research Center in Silicon Valley on entrepreneurship-related research and course development efforts.
ABOUT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL
Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 200 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and doctoral degrees, as well as more than 70 open enrollment Executive Education programs and 55 custom programs, and HBX, the School’s digital learning platform. For more than a century, HBS faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching to educate leaders who make a difference in the world, shaping the practice of business and entrepreneurship around the globe.