{"id":462483,"date":"2026-06-05T14:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T14:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462483\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T14:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T14:25:13","slug":"harvard-business-school-announces-2026-rock-venture-catalyst-cohort-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462483\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvard Business School Announces 2026 Rock Venture Catalyst Cohort – News"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON \u2014 Harvard Business School<\/a> (HBS) and the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship<\/a> today announced the 2026 cohort of the Rock Venture Catalyst<\/a>, the School\u2019s flagship summer program supporting MBA student founders as they build and scale new ventures. <\/p>\n

Formerly known as the Rock Summer Fellows program, the Rock Venture Catalyst has been redesigned to meet the evolving needs of early-stage founders. The program provides a select group of HBS MBA students with funding, mentorship, and a structured, immersive environment to pursue their ventures full time over the summer. <\/p>\n

\"FourDuring the first week of Rock Venture Catalyst, students heard from 2026 graduates who are founders about their experiences.<\/p>\n

This year, 61 students were selected through a highly competitive application process to participate in the program. The cohort represents a diverse range of industries, including artificial intelligence, healthcare, climate technology, fintech, and consumer products. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rock Venture Catalyst is a powerful bridge between classroom learning and real-world execution,\u201d said Thara Pillai, Director of the Rock Center. \u201cEach year, we see founders transform early ideas into tangible ventures with real customers, products, and funding momentum.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cEntrepreneurship is fundamentally about learning through action – testing ideas in the real world, adapting quickly, and building something that creates value,\u201d said Professor Shikhar Ghosh, faculty chair of the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. \u201cThe Rock Venture Catalyst gives students the time, structure, and support to fully immerse themselves in that process, accelerating both their ventures and their development as founders.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Rock Venture Catalyst is designed as a summer-long immersion, enabling founders to step away from traditional internships and focus exclusively on building their startups. Fellows receive non-dilutive funding, access to experienced coaches and Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, and support from a tight-knit peer community. <\/p>\n

\"StudentAli Black (MBA 2027) pitches her start-up Sunday, AI decision engine for art, to the Rock Venture Catalyst cohort.<\/p>\n

The program begins with a required four-week, in-person module in Boston, where participants engage in a faculty-led \u201clearning by doing\u201d curriculum focused on startup fundamentals. This is followed by a virtual module that allows founders to continue building their ventures with ongoing mentorship and accountability. <\/p>\n

Throughout the summer, teams test and validate ideas, develop prototypes, and engage with potential customers and investors. Many participants leave the program having secured early traction, including letters of intent, pilot customers, or initial funding. <\/p>\n

The program culminates in the Rock Venture Catalyst Showcase in August, where founders present their progress to the HBS faculty, entrepreneurial community, investors, and industry leaders. <\/p>\n

“Rock Venture Catalyst gave me access to a network and resources that were instrumental in getting Blitzy off the ground,” said Brian Elliott (MBA 2024), a former Rock Venture Catalyst participant and CEO of Blitzy, an AI-powered software development platform. Since participating in the program, Blitzy has emerged as one of Boston’s newest unicorns, raising more than $200 million and achieving a valuation of approximately $1.4 billion. “The best advice I can give a founder is to focus on building and selling over the perfect plan. Action begets information, not the other way around.” <\/p>\n

The Rock Venture Catalyst is part of the broader ecosystem of the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, which supports HBS students and alumni through courses, competitions, funding opportunities, and a global network of advisors and founders. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe 2026 Rock Venture Catalyst cohort.<\/p>\n

2026 Rock Venture Catalyst Teams <\/p>\n

ABC Design <\/p>\n

Danielle Angela Limcaoco, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

ABC Design is an AI-native design studio for early and growth stage startups. <\/p>\n

Air Right Exchange of America (AREA) <\/p>\n

Joey Ravenna, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

AREA is a network for transferring air rights\u2014the zoned but unbuilt square footage above properties\u2014over distance, to other properties where they can be used. It\u2019s Zillow meets TurboTax, for air rights. <\/p>\n

Alto <\/p>\n

Thejeswi Ramesh, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Alto turns how each advisor thinks into a knowledge graph \u2014 automating admin, compounding their edge, and growing their book. <\/p>\n

Amalia <\/p>\n

Andres Ibarra, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Amalia provides an end-to-end home care agency for seniors, operated through WhatsApp. <\/p>\n

Batch Global <\/p>\n

Shailen Doshi, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Batch Global is a men\u2019s fertility health company that uses sperm as a biomarker, creating an app that enables men to test, track, learn about, improve, and sell their sperm. <\/p>\n

bootk.ai <\/p>\n

Noa Schwartz, MS\/MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Bootk.ai is demand-side intelligence (pricing and bidding platform) for agent builders building products that require premium content and sources. Integrated into a retrieval pipeline, the platform allows agents to decide, per query, which paywalled content is worth purchasing and how much to bid. <\/p>\n

Brand Muse <\/p>\n

Miles Francis, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Brand Muse is an AI platform that brings creator marketing in-house by helping brands decide which creators and content to invest in before spending. <\/p>\n

Cicada Health <\/p>\n

Kanishk Tantia, MS\/MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Jolie Lerner, MS\/MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Cicada Health is developing a non-invasive salivary biosensing platform that turns hormone testing from one-off snapshots into longitudinal insights for patients suffering from endocrinological disorders. <\/p>\n

Civic Foundry <\/p>\n

Smita Bhattacharjee, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Civic Foundry is the readiness platform that prepares govtech startups to win government pilots in their target cities and states. <\/p>\n

Clamp <\/p>\n

Alek Antoniewicz, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Clamp guards mission-critical production systems against irreversible AI agent actions <\/p>\n

Closely <\/p>\n

Miguel Estruch, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Closely provides risk intelligence infrastructure for emerging markets, built on physical security automation. <\/p>\n

Contigo <\/p>\n

Pablo Caetano, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Simon Carbone, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Contigo is building a low-cost primary care subscription for underserved patients in Colombia, and eventually across Latin America, that gives patients a doctor by video within 36 hours and prescriptions at their door, while giving doctors a reliable stream of additional income outside a broken public system. <\/p>\n

Corev <\/p>\n

Keegan Myers, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Alek Woltjer, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Corev is bringing designers and doers together through a collaborative preconstruction intelligence platform that systemizes and unleashes the power of Design Assist. <\/p>\n

ELANDA <\/p>\n

Amanda Chen, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

ELANDA is a fully integrated vintage clothing supply chain and retail brand. ELANDA uses proprietary AI tools to optimize sorting unique vintage clothing in order to deliver quality secondhand clothes to customers at scale. <\/p>\n

FreightFinch <\/p>\n

Trevor Glasgow, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

FreightFinch is autonomous air freight planning for the next generation of freight forwarding. <\/p>\n

GeminAI Dx <\/p>\n

Alberto Hernandez Reguera, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

GeminAI Dx is an agentic clinical AI platform for hospitals that orchestrates specialized diagnostic AI models, both proprietary and third-party, to continuously analyze patient data and automate clinical workflows. <\/p>\n

GoodGut <\/p>\n

Janel Sevilla, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Good Gut makes gut health feel simple, approachable, and easy to maintain without restrictive habits, confusing supplements, or complicated wellness routines. <\/p>\n

Handoff <\/p>\n

Camp Geary, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Handoff is building identity verification software for logistics companies to prevent the rising trend of cargo theft. <\/p>\n

Immortal Security <\/p>\n

Aurnov Chattopadhyay, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Immortal Security delivers AI-enabled customer support, security, and cyber-risk insurance for enterprises using IT infrastructure no longer officially supported by its vendor. <\/p>\n

Interlock Systems Inc. <\/p>\n

Arshaan Ali, MS\/MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Tyler Mangini, MS\/MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Interlock Systems is an AI company automating the design-to-manufacturing handoff for contract manufacturers. Our platform ingests engineering drawings, CAD files, and BOMs to extract structured manufacturing data, eliminating the manual interpretation work that slows quoting, planning, and production. <\/p>\n

Kilebenstein AI <\/p>\n

Christopher Kilebenstein, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Kilebenstein AI is a forward deployed AI boutique. We measure where a team stands on AI, design the path forward, and build the workflows, knowledge bases, and agents that get them ahead. The first deliverable is a working workflow, not a sixty-page deck. <\/p>\n

Laoh <\/p>\n

Pulkit Walia, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Laoh is an assessment tool for hiring AI native jobs roles, starting with Forward Deployed Engineer hiring. <\/p>\n

Leapfrog <\/p>\n

David Learner, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Leapfrog enables faster, cheaper payments for businesses and consumers by enabling start-ups, fintechs, and banks to enable stablecoins-based payments with bank-grade compliance infrastructure. <\/p>\n

lilac <\/p>\n

Grace Wu, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Lilac turns strangers into neighbors-communities purchase together and save together. <\/p>\n

LIORA Health <\/p>\n

Courtney Sherbal, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

LIORA pairs women managing complex or chronic conditions with trained care advocates who support them before, during, and after medical appointments, including joining visits virtually in real time. <\/p>\n

Lucine <\/p>\n

Lea Petermeijer, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Odessa Deng, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Lucine is a luxury non-toxic functional fragrance brand. <\/p>\n

Maiz <\/p>\n

Grace Lee, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Maiz provides deep sleep support powered by Maizinol, a new clinically-tested yet commercially-untapped compound proven to sustain the deep sleep cycle \u2013 designed for true overnight recovery. <\/p>\n

Markov Health <\/p>\n

Hoyt Gong, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Markov Health provides agentic medical and pharmacy claims analytics to reduce employer healthcare costs <\/p>\n

Meridian <\/p>\n

Taylor Brockman, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

A performance and health platform for elite early-career professionals that helps them sustain peak output through the highest-pressure years of their career – sold to the institutions that depend on them. <\/p>\n

Perspectiv <\/p>\n

Hasan Tuhtamishev, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Nadia Vaso, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Perspectiv is an AI-Native Debt Collection Law Firm <\/p>\n

Polae<\/p>\n

Helen Fish, MBA 2027, Co-Founder<\/p>\n

Polae is a performance and reflection tool for high-performing early-career professionals.<\/p>\n

Polytopic.ai<\/p>\n

Simon Deek, MBA 2027, Founder<\/p>\n

Polytopic.ai is an AI operations platform for SMBs. It deploys agents inside the tools companies already use that continuously build context about the business \u2014 its clients, processes, and history. That deepening knowledge powers automated workflows that get better over time, turning manual operations into reliable, executed work.<\/p>\n

Potluck Club <\/p>\n

Daniel Schwartz, MS\/MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Potluck Club is a social app for home cooks to save recipes, share what they cook, and discover new favorites through friends they actually trust. <\/p>\n

Propelia <\/p>\n

Inigo Fernandez, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Propelia helps search fund backed companies to develop and implement an AI strategy <\/p>\n

Protego <\/p>\n

Emiliano Galvan Munoz, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Arturo Hernandez Balderas, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Protego is building an AI-powered digital insurance broker that makes policies understandable, comparable and easy to buy for Mexican consumers. Protego addresses the current opaque distribution system that drives millions away from insurance, leaving Mexico with lower insurance penetration than comparable LATAM markets. <\/p>\n

Resonate <\/p>\n

Ed Gerrard, MS\/MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Resonate is a cursor for musicians – an AI assisted music creation platform that empowers musical creativity, giving agency without taking away authorship. <\/p>\n

Rilear Industries <\/p>\n

Danny Vedova, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Rilear Industries is making an undersea Tesla supercharging network to charge batteries underwater. <\/p>\n

Safely Track <\/p>\n

Thomas Campbell, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Safely Track turns site photos, voice notes, and field observations into client-ready safety reports, so Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) consultants spend more time billing and less time formatting. <\/p>\n

Sapling <\/p>\n

Dilan Dubey, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Sapling is the AI platform that helps employees track their work and performance, get real feedback, and frees managers from the manual burden of performance reviews! <\/p>\n

Sawa <\/p>\n

Ziad Hassan, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Sawa is an AI-native agency that builds and markets digital products for large creators and personal brands. <\/p>\n

Scouter Technologies <\/p>\n

Kiera Klinsky, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Scouter is building technology for hiring, starting with modeling test monitoring software. <\/p>\n

Semagram <\/p>\n

Skyler Liu, MS\/MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Semagram is an agentic AI platform automating power grid interconnection workflows. <\/p>\n

SentryStack<\/p>\n

Connor Elkin, MS\/MBA 2027, Founder<\/p>\n

SentryStack secures the shadow AI applications of large enterprises.<\/p>\n

Spectral Autonomy <\/p>\n

David Neary, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Spectral Autonomy makes AI enabled electromagnetic protection systems, so the same techniques that can jam enemy drones, degrade missiles, and spot incoming threats on advanced jets can now also protect transport planes, ships, stadiums, and even skyscrapers, saving human lives. <\/p>\n

Sunday <\/p>\n

Ali Black, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

JC Moubarak, MS\/MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Salome Sommer, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Sunday is an AI decision engine for art that replaces subjective speculation with bankable data to unlock $2T in illiquid wealth. <\/p>\n

TableIQ <\/p>\n

Ashvin Nagarajan, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

Michael Neiswander, MBA 2027, Co-Founder <\/p>\n

TableIQ is an agentic AI video analytics platform for restaurants and small retail stores. <\/p>\n

Tector Therapeutics <\/p>\n

Matheus Pacifici, MS\/MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Tector Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing first in class protein degraders against Cancer. <\/p>\n

Troptix <\/p>\n

Emmanuel Sylvester, MS\/MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

TropTix is a digital-first ticketing and event infrastructure platform built for the Caribbean and its diaspora. <\/p>\n

Valyn <\/p>\n

Avery Bang, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Valyn is building a purpose-built battery longevity testing platform in North America. We provide dedicated, industry-specialized, ISO 17025 accredited thermal aging capacity with cell and module capability so EV, energy storage, and data center builders can qualify batteries without rationing tests or compromising data integrity. <\/p>\n

Varsity Office Hours <\/p>\n

Clara Geffs, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Varsity Office Hours is a peer-to-peer networking platform for student athletes seeking college recruitment and college athletes seeking NIL opportunities. <\/p>\n

Verno <\/p>\n

Oliver Wesche, MBA 2027, Founder <\/p>\n

Verno is the AI-native collaboration platform built for the engineers who design the physical world\u2014oil refineries, chemical plants, water systems. We turn the slowest, most error-prone work in process engineering\u2014editing and QA\/QC of P&IDs\u2014into a fast, intelligent, multiplayer workflow. Think Cursor for the diagrams that run global industry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 Harvard Business School (HBS) and the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship today announced the 2026 cohort…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[138,336,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-462483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}