Harvard Business School Rock Center for Entrepreneurship Hosts First Annual Demo Day
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BOSTON—The Harvard Business School (HBS) Rock Center for Entrepreneurship recently hosted its first schoolwide Demo Day, a showcase event for early-stage investors. Highlighting a wide variety of student ventures emerging from the School, the inaugural event was led by Faculty Chair Julia Austin and faculty advisors Lindsay Hyde, Allison Mnookin, and Christina Wallace. Video courtesy Ann Hermes.
Select student teams delivered five-minute pitches, others presented posters, and a carefully curated group of early-stage institutional and angel investors networked with students throughout the day. “This event gives both students and investors the opportunity to get to know each other in a more intimate way and create connections,” said Austin. “While all teams were not actively seeking fundraising, it was an amazing sneak-peek opportunity for the investor community to meet up-and-coming HBS ventures, while also providing the students with valuable exposure and real-world experience.” “I found the whole experience incredibly fruitful, both as a forcing function to get my pitch together ahead of investor conversations this spring and as an opportunity to meet interested investors,” added Katherine Manweiler (MBA 2024). Alumni founders Yinka Ogunbiyi (MS/MBA 2023) from Halo Braid, Wombi Rose (MBA 2015) from Lovepop, and Anthony Tayoun (MBA 2019) from Dexai Robotics introduced the student teams. “Demo Day was awesome, as the caliber of startups was incredible,” said Ogunbiyi. “I was really impressed by how far the startups had come in terms of revenue and product fidelity. The Rock Center was a phenomenal help to Halo Braid during (and after) our time at HBS and I’m excited to see entrepreneurship continue to thrive there.” “HBS, specifically the iLab and Rock Center, incubated my robotics startup, introduced me to my co-founder, and helped me secure our first paying customer and seed investors,” Tayoun remarked. “It was great to be back for Demo Day and watch entrepreneurs take the first steps on their journeys to change the world. I loved their energy and I'm excited to follow their progress.” Ventures had to be at post-ideation phase and have, at minimum, a proof of concept or prototype in progress. Each venture submitted an application with short student bios, reasons for applying, a draft of a seven-slide (minimum) pitch deck, and a short three-minute intro video. Invited applicants continued to develop their presentation materials with help and coaching from faculty, staff, and advisors. The student ventures have been supported by HBS entrepreneurship programs such as Startup Operations, Startup Bootcamp, Rock Accelerator, Rock Summer Fellows, Social Enterprise Accelerator, New Venture Competition, and the Entrepreneurship Club among others. This is the first of what will now be an annual series of Demo Days. Ventures at this year’s event and their student founders included: ARAME Luxury Oral Care Aria ATOMIC FUNGI Blitzy.ai BridgeHealthAI CGM Sports Cobalt ID Crop Diagnostix DAE Data Dots Evently Gigbanc GoodRoots Grain Hair Groove Holly Hometeam Huddle Hydra Infinity World leaseClub MiCampo Modulate Bio Montage myHome Nektr.ai PALM Care Technology PoGu Sanso SaveSpace Sliq Solara Starkenn Technologies SUMS TestParty Turmerik Veracity-Health.ai |
Mark Cautela
mcautela+hbs.edu
617-495-5143
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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.