Harvard Business School's Rock Center for Entrepreneurship Hosts Second Annual Demo Day
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BOSTON—The Harvard Business School (HBS) Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and the Social Enterprise Initiative recently hosted the second annual Demo Day, a showcase event for early-stage investors. Highlighting a wide variety of student ventures emerging from the School, the event was led by Rock Center faculty members Julia Austin, Lindsay Hyde, Allison Mnookin, and Christina Wallace.
Select student teams delivered three-minute pitches to a carefully curated group of early-stage institutional and angel investors. All the ventures are also semi-finalists in this year’s New Venture Competition (NVC), an annual pitch competition open to HBS MBA students and alumni founders with early-stage ventures. The ventures presenting at Demo Day used the opportunity to continue to develop their pitch for NVC with help and coaching from faculty, staff, and advisors.
“Demo Day was conceived in 2024 as an opportunity for investors to get a sneak peek at some of the most impressive startups coming out of HBS," said Wallace. “While not all teams are actively fundraising, they all can benefit from building relationships and getting feedback on their pitches.” Wallace added, “Equally important: it is an opportunity for founders to connect more deeply with each other as they approach the next stages of company building and fundraising. It’s easy to get tunnel vision when you’re building a startup while juggling school and life, and NVC Demo Day gives them a chance to celebrate each other and identify peers who are on a similar path, ensuring they don’t feel alone as they prepare for life post-graduation.” “NVC Demo Day is an incredible opportunity to showcase our venture, connect with investors, and refine our vision in real time,” said Lindsey Chrismon (MBA 2025), CEO of Oply, an AI-powered home management platform. “Having participated last year, I know how invaluable this experience is—not just for funding, but for sharpening our story and accelerating momentum. NVC has pushed me to think bigger and move faster, and NVC Demo Day is where it all comes together." “Nothing beats the opportunity to share your vision with people who have walked the same path or supported others in their journeys,” said Ejiro Marho (MBA 2026), co-founder of Aidra Health, which addresses the gap in medical equipment availability by facilitating equipment sharing and redistribution. “NVC Demo Day provided this at an incredible scale—allowing us to connect deeply with investors and collaborators who share our passion, as well as those who offered invaluable insights and advice. It was a win-win for all." “Beyond the excitement, NVC Demo Day was also a powerful reminder of the important work ahead,” added David Bunn (MBA 2026) the other co-founder of Aidra. “Through NVC, we’ve gained critical insights into overcoming adoption barriers as well as strengthening our delivery and impact model. We’re excited to continue working with our new connections from NVC Demo Day as well as leveraging the incredible resources at the iLab and Rock Center to take Aidra Health to the next level.”
The student ventures have been supported by HBS entrepreneurship programs such as Startup Operations, Startup Bootcamp, Rock Accelerator, Rock Summer Fellows, Social Enterprise Summer Accelerator, and the Entrepreneurship Club among others.
Ventures at this year’s event and their student founders included: Accio Accio streamlines and automates the hardware manufacturing process.
Aidra Health Aidra Health is bridging the urgent gap in medical equipment availability by facilitating equipment sharing and redistribution through an asset light model. By pioneering Africa’s foremost medical equipment-sharing marketplace, the platform ensures hospitals can access critical devices when and where they need them most. Argus Systems Argus Systems accelerates AI model development for physical AI. Atlas Atlas is an AI-powered money assistant that helps the 91 percent of recent graduates whose student loan stress impacts their well-being by optimizing cash flow, managing debt, and providing real-time, personalized financial guidance. It’s like Mint x ChatGPT for the next generation entering the workforce CareCorgi For first-time family caregivers overwhelmed by navigating elder care, CareCorgi provides a human-powered, AI-elevated copilot that provides dynamic personalized care plans and connects them with real human geriatric care coordinators Catalog Catalog is a new-age commerce platform that helps fashion brands optimize their storefronts for AI shopping agents. Coord Health Coord Health provides critical at-home care for women’s health. Through virtual preventative care and lifestyle coaching, it is creating a new support layer for both patients and providers. Furca Furca is a simple referral management platform for dental service organizations. Furca provides one workflow for all their referrals with minimal staff training and practice onboarding to boost revenue and patient satisfaction. HiLo HiLo auto-tracks a user’s gaming highs and lows, turning stats into stories—so they can celebrate milestones, compete, and connect effortlessly. Importrix Importrix is an AI platform for imports that automates the customs brokerage process end-to-end to improve the efficiency of logistics companies. Kykloris Kykloris installs modular systems in industrial seafood processing facilities, converting waste into natural, high-value biopolymers that can replace harmful chemicals and petroleum-based materials using green, scalable technology. Kyra Health Kyra Health is an AI-native Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA) platform designed for large enterprises that enables companies to move from defined benefit to defined contribution health insurance, leveraging individual exchanges to lower cost and improve benefit offering. Latent Energy Latent Energy enables EV owners to monetize the excess capacity in their vehicle's battery. Latent Energy also provides the in-home hardware and software to enable bi-directional EV charging and then aggregates this capacity to trade energy in the electricity wholesale markets. Lexi Hospitals spend billions on interpretation services that are slow, expensive, and unreliable – yet language barriers still cause medical errors, costly liability, and worse health outcomes for 30 million Limited English Proficiency patients in the U.S. Lexi is an AI-powered medical interpretation platform that enables instant, accurate, and HIPAA-compliant communication between providers and patients across the care continuum. Lucille Lucille is a better-for-you, high-protein, high-calorie ready-to-drink beverage for the senior population. MediSimplify MediSimplify is building an AI assistant that advances health equity by enabling healthcare providers to efficiently create easy-to-understand patient communications. Omi Health Omi Health is an AI-driven pet health coach that provides personalized daily guidance to pet owners, helping them maintain their pet’s well-being between vet visits and prevent unnecessary medical costs. Oply Oply is an AI-powered home management assistant that predicts, organizes, and automates home maintenance, saving homeowners time and preventing costly repairs. By leveraging advanced agentic RAG, OCR, predictive analytics, IOT, and an AI-driven marketplace, Oply provides personalized insights, proactive reminders, and seamless vendor coordination—all without the need for hardware. Pearle Pearle is a luxury vegan caviar brand, offering the taste and feel of caviar without harming sturgeon, the most endangered species group on the planet. After building a reputation in the greater than $2 billion caviar market, Pearle will expand to foie gras and lobster alternatives, a $14 billion market. Playlish For billions of English learners, who lack access to real-life practice and meaningful feedback, Playlish offers an AI-powered voice tutor inside a pocket-sized English environment. Through real-life simulation games, interactive tasks, and real-time feedback, it helps learners build confidence and communication skills, unlocking education, career, and global opportunities. Remarcation Remarcation fosters the autonomy of disabled users in public space through information justice. Saga Saga is a platform that allows creators to legally license AI-generated popular IP characters and assets, enabling them to produce high-quality content while giving IP owners a new, controlled revenue stream in the generative AI media era. Samraj Samraj is a resource-management game that empowers overwhelmed young adults to transform managing their money from a daunting process into an engaging adventure, regardless of their financial literacy. Theseus AI Theseus AI is an AI-powered compliance automation platform that helps energy producers streamline regulatory compliance and reduce costs. By leveraging large language models, Theseus AI automates regulatory tracking, report generation, and workflow management, ensuring energy producers stay compliant with evolving regulations effortlessly. To find out which ventures will be chosen as the winning pitches, be sure to attend this year’s New Venture Competition finale live in-person at 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 27, in HBS’s Klarman Hall or tune-in via livestream. |
Mark Cautela
mcautela+hbs.edu
617-495-5143
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