Students Start-Ups Tap New HBS Fund
Nine HBS student-led teams received grants in March averaging $5,000 to $7,000 to launch and test their start-up business ideas. A total of $50,000 was made available through the pilot Minimum Viable Product Fund program run by HBS’s Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. The winners, selected from 88 applicants, were:
Adiply (Omar Restom, HBS ’12): A self-serve tool that allows an advertiser to buy ad space on a Web site.
AfterSteps (Jess Bloomgarden, Alex Stratoudakis, and Emma Taylor, all HBS ’12): End-of-life planning with educational resources and tools.
Children’s Stories for American Muslims (Mohammed Aaser, MBA ’11): A children’s entertainment and education brand for Muslim Americans.
MatchLend (Jeffrey Engler, MBA ’11, and Charles Deutsch): A tool to improve loan underwriting accuracy.
Ovuline (Vasile Tofan, HBS ’12, and Ecaterina Demcencov): A Web application that allows women to keep track of health data.
Rewardly (Aleem Mawani, MBA ’11, and Jasen Kimis): A rewards program that works with customers’ existing credit cards wherever they make purchases.
UpStart (Sarah Dillard, Jevan Soo, and Shiyan Koh, all MBA ’11): A program that seeks to create a path for young people to work at promising start-ups.
Vinamea (Gurvan Rallon and Cornelius Frey, both HBS ’12): A platform that allows people to rent a portion of a vineyard and receive their share of the year’s vintage.
Zumper (Anthemos Georgiades, Tom Dye, and Ken Sim, all HBS ’12): An online real-estate market structured in a more efficient and transparent manner.
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A brief update: Ovuline went live on Jan 10, 2012 drawing in 5,000+ visits in the first week! Check it on: www.ovuline.com—a machine learning approach to fertility planning.