A total of 54 ventures are participating in this year’s fall semester of the Harvard Venture Incubation Program, the 12-week acceleration program for startups from every Harvard school.
This fall’s teams represent a diversity of industries: 20% are focused on social impact, cultural entrepreneurship or education; 32% on consumer products or services; 22% on health and sciences; and 26% on enterprise or high tech.
Who are we watching closely? Definitely PionEar (winner of $75,000 in a recent Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge contest), but also Umbulizer (winner of this year’s social enterprise track at HBS’s New Venture Competition) and Hellofriend (called by his co-founders “a morally correct social media”).
Here’s the full list of the ventures that were admitted to the 2018 Harvard Fall Venture Program (descriptions provided by Harvard University and edited by BostInno):
Consumer- • Bundle: We provide back-up/flexible child care as an employee benefit for working parents, helping employers reduce absenteeism and attract and retain talent.
- • Content Opinions: Creating conversation between unfamiliar perspectives.
- • Dystrophic: Dystrophic is a game development studio creating Hexile, a surreal puzzle game based on themes of environmentalism and social awareness.
- • GoPay: GoPay helps international students convert currency cheaply to pay directly to their university or any foreign bank account.
- • Gumshoe: Personalized restaurant recommendations for individuals or groups.
- • Hellofriend: Hellofriend is a decentralized social networking platform for people to buy and sell social experiences around the globe.
- • Honeybird: Honeybird is a consumer products company taking on stress, anxiety, and poor sleep. Our first product is a weighted blanket.
- • Lesson Squad: Music lessons in the comfort of your home.
- • LeverEdge: Decrease student loan rates by negotiating on behalf of large groups of potential borrowers.
- • MixTape: Mixtape combines the ease of music streaming with the sentimentality of mixtapes to help you share music more meaningfully with the people you love.
- • prettychill: We deliver frozen plant-based mini-meals in convenient resealable bowls straight to your door. Always gluten-free, dairy-free and delicious.
- • ReMana: ReMana is reinventing how women pump, store and feed breastmilk. The system reduces the chance of spilling, requires less cleaning and is sustainable.
- • Settlyt: Settlyt is a real money peer-to-peer platform that facilitates challenges and arguments between friends in a social way.
- • Spruce: Spruce & Co. creates simple products that encourage a healthy lifestyle through everyday routines. Our first product, Sprucies, are gentle, natural, disposable screen cleaning sheets designed to keep your mobile devices clean and bright.
- • The Key: We are a location-based, professional networking and career-management tool for the youth, helping them build relationships and find job opportunities.
- • Venuefly: Venuefly makes it easy to find event spaces — our platform allows bookers and venues to find, communicate and transact with each other.
- • Voodles: Voodles is the first-ever vegetable-based dry pasta. It’s organic, allergen-free and, most importantly, unexplainably delicious.
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