idea
20/21
impact report
Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator
1
04 our program
06 IDEA mission 08 eleventh year goals 10 IDEA is an accelerator 12 stages 14 virtual IDEA 16 CEO letter 18 what is the management team?
22 our impact
24 ventures 30 impact on ventures 36 the cohort model 38 ventures in the news 40 events 44 diversity & inclusion
46 our resources 48 funding 50 coaches 52 advisory board 54 a thank you to Ron Caplan 56 partners 60 20/21 management team 62 thank you to our donors 64 join our team 2
c
con3
our pro 4
ogram 06 IDEA mission 08 eleventh year goals 10 IDEA is an accelerator 12 stages 14 virtual IDEA 16 CEO letter 18 what is the management team?
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idea missi IDEA is Northeastern University’s student-led venture accelerator that supports entrepreneurs in the Northeastern community. The operations are led by undergraduates from varying educational backgrounds and support venture development from concept to launch. • We never take any equity • We are industry agnostic • We are not just for students • We embrace failure Mission Statement IDEA fosters the development of entrepreneurs in the Northeastern community through the educational experience of developing a business from concept to launch. We provide a holistic experience for entrepreneurs to receive resources, support and engagement opportunities in an experiential learning environment.
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ion 7
eleven year goals
Our management and team initiatives focused on the following: • Resource Delivery, Awareness and Allocation With hundreds of ventures moving through our program, and each one unique - we want to make sure we are providing an experience that is rich in quality for as many founders as possible. This year, we worked to improve the facilitation of IDEA-specific resources to ventures as well as programs outside of IDEA, and add new resources as times evolve. Our goal was to make sure that ventures are supported by us, and we are filling in the “gaps” of our offerings on a continual basis. • Intentional and Inclusive Actions A part of progressing is recognizing where we are lacking in our knowledge or in providing pathways to opportunities, and working to change. This has been a daily task and isn’t allocated to just one person or time of year. It’s institution-wide. No action just happens, and every small choice made, creates a butterfly effect when working with as many lives as we touch here at IDEA. Our goal is to curate a welcoming environment for the entire entrepreneurial community and stand strong in our resolve to rise all boats, and do our part to not allow barriers to keep entrepreneurship from coming from anywhere. As a part of this initiative, there was a clear focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, including highlighting diversity within our ventures, our management team, and faculty.
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nth • Authentic and Genuine Engagement One of our goals for this year has been to encourage members of our community to engage with our program and make use of the humanizing approach we take to entrepreneurship in the work that we do. Understanding what it is that we do at IDEA, and providing steps to get easily involved. • IDEA Culture of Resilience Adversity breeds innovation - this has always been true. We wanted to enhance this mentality and prove that when you get knocked down, you can get back up again, stronger than ever before. We talk about the fear of failure, and the difficult barriers that come with entrepreneurship and finding success, but this year we wanted to enhance a community at IDEA of students and ventures who lean on each other to learn and help each other get through hard parts. • Growth, Learning, and Empowerment from Within We wanted to empower those within our community to help us change and improve it, and hold it up as something they’re proud to have been a part of and that brings them to their own next level - personally and professionally. As IDEA, we seek to practice what we preach, and allow stakeholders a chance to learn, grow, and reach beyond IDEA and benefit from the efforts that they’ve put into this program.
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idea
venture communi career funding edu succes pas peo
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is a
ity
g ucation ss ssion ople 11
ready A focus on customer validation In the first stage, our process focuses on understanding the scope of the problem, validating it with customers, designing a solution, and conducting initial competitive analysis. Some resources that are available in this stage include coaching office hours, IDEA workshops and events, templates and guides, and the Prototype Fund.
set
Build your business model In the second stage, ventures work to develop their business model. This includes establishing their initial product or service, considering revenue models, and creating a go-to-market strategy. Some resources that are available in this stage include business model guides, access to service providers and being connected with IDEA coaches.
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y
go Bring your business to life In the last stage, ventures begin executing on business milestones to scale their companies in preparation of raising external capital, joining another accelerator, or becoming self-sustained on revenue. Some resources that are available in this stage include the gap fund up to $30,000 in non-equity grant funding to fill a gap for your business, and access to the McCarthy(s) Venture Mentoring Network.
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virtua Our Virtual Impact
IDEA went fully virtual in the 11th Year, due to the circumstances caused by the global pandemic. While this set some initial challenges, IDEA proved to be more resilient than ever before through a process of adaptation and virtual experiments that allowed to find out how to best operate in the new and unfamiliar setting. In fact, IDEA never stopped operating and supporting the wide community of founders and entrepreneurs that it’s surrounded by. In order to continue our operations, we moved all our resources to a virtual format, and found new platforms to host our two biggest yearly events, NEXPO and Pitchathon. This semester, our community also hosted various community events and internal programming workshops all online, including meetings with the Venture Advisory Board (VAB) and Management team meetings in the Virtual Lab. The VAB, a group of founders invited to give feedback on a range of Management Team projects, met exclusively online. Founders were invited to express their wants and needs and Management Team members got help evaluating and re-iterating projects and initiatives for the IDEA community. The #virtuallab was created on Gather.town in order for management team members to interact in a communal “space” since we could not experience the IDEA Lab. It provided fun opportunities in terms of character creation, public and private conversations, and collaborative activities.
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idea
A Look Ahead As inoculations increase and social-distancing restrictions lift, the IDEA Team will have a lot of choice as to which aspects of the virtual environment will continue and which will return to being in-person. This year, we were grateful to experience a multitude of unexpected benefits provided by the virtual environment: • Eliminating in-person attendance allowed us to hire Management members living anywhere in the world, not just the Boston area; • Mitigating travel time meant that people were able to attend more meetings and everyone had a more flexibile schedule; • We were able to invite entrepreneurs and students from all over the world to attend NEXPO and Pitchathon, which for the first time ever had attendees tune in from 16 countries; • Online events allowed for more data collection and documentation so that future teams will have benchmarks and reference points; While it’s still uncertain what the 12th year of IDEA will officially look like, we can imagine that future teams may create a hybrid model, in which there will be opportunities to attend meetings and events either virtually or in-person depending on one’s ability or preference. Either way, we are excited to see how IDEA will adapt to new circumstances moving forward!
countries that the members of the management team were located in for our 11th year 15
letter from our
CEO
Eleven years ago, a lifetime ago it seems, a group of students and faculty came together to create something incredible. They came together with the purpose of finding ways to support people beyond themselves and their immediate peers - but to set up a place for innovators to come together. Innovation and entrepreneurship are innate in the Northeastern community, and if a program like IDEA was to form anywhere, I believe it only makes sense that it could have been formed in the exact circumstances that arose in that conference room in Boston in 2008. Over the years, other organizations followed suit and developed - with visions to support more than just themselves, and exist to create opportunities for those who need only ask. A true ecosystem has evolved in the last 11 years, supporting thousands of founders and successful ventures, and educating hundreds of students who strove to support as many community members as possible. Award winning work and awardwinning ventures were coming out of Northeastern, and much of the credit could be thanks to the dozens of students and student leaders who ran these programs. This year was our ecosystem’s first true test. This was our wildfire, our flood, and our volcanic eruption. But the thing about tests though, and other tough situations - is that the world doesn’t stop spinning. People keep moving, lives keep happening, and ideas keep coming. The 16founders you will see here are all examples of people who were tested,
and success didn’t come immediately. More than 200 Ventures have joined IDEA since last March, and every single one has faced their own wildfires and floods and everything else. Those who have been on this journey for years have hit roadblocks, and those who are new, couldn’t even find a hand-hold. This has been one of the most challenging times in modern history, but one thing I can be proud of, is that in all of the insanity and troubles, and complex issues - we found the helpers. And we found the ways to support one another and be kind and welcoming. We did what a community is meant to do, and we helped. Even when especially when - it got hard. I have considered the 11th year of IDEA, to be our year to “re-rig” the program - not to break anything down and start from scratch, and not to just leave everything the same and batten down the hatches. The one good thing about a storm, is that it can help the crew find flaws in the ship, before it brings it down. This year - we optimized, found the intention behind the program, and found what we need to do to function at our best. Even if it wasn’t to keep moving full steam ahead. I have frequently referred to IDEA as a perfect representation of the Ship of Theseus paradox. There was a famous ship sailed by the hero Theseus in a great battle, but as time went by some of the wooden parts began to rot and were replaced by new ones; then, after a century or so, every part had been replaced. The question then is whether the “restored” ship is still the same object as the original. The IDEA program is our Ship of Theseus. With 11 years, and 11 CEOs, and 11 Teams, and thousands of ventures moved through the program, and modifications made with each of those ventures in mind - there are very few things left from the initial year of the program. The only things that remain in fact are the intention and the sheer desire to support founders as they move forward - and a desire to learn and improve. The only true constant is change, and the only bit of IDEA that remained is the desire to evolve and innovate. If I can leave anything behind here, as my mark on this program is this - be good. Be good at what you do, and be good to those around you. Be intelligent, be intentional, most importantly - be kind. Whether you work with IDEA as a venture, a coach, a student, or more - I hope you have found a resource here and while the challenges are difficult, and the storms might be rough, I hope that we might weather them together. IDEA was a product of circumstance and so is everything else we do in life. Take the chance and enjoy it.
O
Elizabeth Cavallo Altschuler-Meyer CEO of IDEA Venture Accelerator
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what is the management team The IDEA management team is led by 50 Northeastern University undergraduate students from a wide variety of educational backgrounds that are passionate about helping ventures succeed and growing the IDEA program to reach its full potential. These are students who became involved with IDEA to learn more about entrepreneurship, get a taste of venture capital before graduating, or simply want to make a real impact in the sorrounding entrepreneurship community. 18
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venture team The Venture team serves as the backbone of IDEA, working with all ventures to provide resources for what they need to succeed in the program. The members of the Venture Team are divided into four groups: Ready, Set, Go and Investments. The Ready, Set, and Go stages act as stage gates in the IDEA program with each stage helping an entrepreneur develop different parts of their venture and providing access to unique stage-specific resources. The Investments team directly manages the funding resources at IDEA and is supported by members from all teams. Over the past year, the team has worked on a variety of projects including: revamping the resource guides across all stages; increasing venture pipeline and diversity of ventures starting at Ready stage; implementing the first ever cohort model; revamping the coaching process in the Set stage; implementing new feedback-seeking tools in Ready and Set stage; having bootcamps around venture capital funding led by Professor Bob Lentz for Go stage ventures; working more with The McCarthy(s) Venture Mentoring Network, especially for ventures in Go stage; streamlining the Gap Fund application form and building a better grading rubric when analyzing ventures which apply for the Gap Fund.
marketing team The Marketing team is responsible for fostering conversations and interactions with IDEA among the external community of entrepreneurs, and get messages out across all channels of interest (social media, blog, newsletters, slack ). The main goals of the Marketing team this year were increasing accessibility to the program, developing engagement with the brand, and being recognized as a thought leader in the industry. Some strategies that were adopted to achieve these goals included heavy digital campaigns, Public Relations initiatives, email blasts, creating new original content, and supporting IDEA events.
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events team The Events team helps foster authentic human interaction, kickstart inspiration, and connect communities despite the challenges set by the virtual environment. In the 11th year, the Events team held NEXPO and Pitchathon, which aimed at featuring IDEA ventures and the resources that support them in our program and at Northeastern. The team also co-hosted workshops with Pathfinder, the IDEA Legal Officer, and E-club.
tech team The Tech team leverages technology to optimize operations and data collection, transforming IDEA into a data-driven organization. Specifically, the team strives to enable operational efficiency, improve venture experience, and market IDEA and its ventures. To meet its objectives, the Tech team works closely with other teams, particularly Venture and Community. Over the past year the team worked to create a site to advertise ventures to outside observers and investors. The Tech team also analyzed internal data to modify processes with the goal of creating the best possible experience for ventures.
what is the managemen 20
community team The Community Team is responsible for ensuring stronger connections with IDEA’s core communities: Management Team members, ventures, Northeastern University, alumni, coaches, and the external Boston community. This year, the Community Team had several goals: best utilize connections, gather feedback for informed decisionmaking, and create a clear, welcoming, and helpful environment. The Community Team continued to create content for the Bright IDEAs podcast and spread awareness of IDEA’s resources via in-class presentations. It re-formatted Venture Advisory Board sessions to gather founder feedback on specific Management Team projects, and create Static Resource Guides about information highly requested by IDEA founders, such as How To Find a Co-founder.
rotational associates program This year, we’ve brought back the Rotational Associate Program, now under the management of a new executive position, the Chief of Staff. With a set point of contact to help guide the associates, the program aims to help first and second year students gain exposure to the different aspects of the IDEA Student Management Team. The Rotational Associate Program sees the associates shadow and participate in initiatives during four-week assignments in the Venture, Marketing, and Events teams, as well as participate in full-team events, meetings, and sessions to learn the intricacies of how the organization works and figure out what positions they would like to pursue in the future.
e nt team? 21
our impa 22
act
24 ventures 30 impact on ventures 36 the cohort model 38 ventures in the news 40 events 44 diversity & inclusion
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ventu 462
total active ventures
28.5%
increase of
in new ventures that joined IDEA’s program compared to last year
305 78 76
ventures in ready stage
ventures in set stage ventures in go stage
24
ures 96
launched ventures throughout IDEA’s 11 years
25
ventures launched since May 2020
25
26
launc
blurr
ched ventures
27
industries number of ventures in each industry
2
53
NEU relation 13% graduate
33% undergraduate
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1% faculty
53% alumni
gender 70/30
male to female ratio of founders
education colleges of our founders
Bouvé College of Health Sciences
College of Professional Studies College of Engineering
College of Science
College of Social Sciences & Humanites
College of Arts, Media & Design D’Amore-McKim School of Business
Khoury College of Computer and Information Science
Undeclared
School of Law
29
impac internal funding distributed in the last 12 months gap fund
25 ventures $ 233,870 prototype fund
13 projects $ 16,908 30
ct
on ventures
alpha fund
8 projects $ 35,940
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external funding ventures raised over
$
247 million
since IDEA was founded
funding highlights slate raised
$
1.7M
seed round
busright raised
$
2.5M
seed round
instaversal
$
32
125k
in revenue
funding highlights SkreensTV
$
14M
potion
$
630k
foodspace
1.6M
$
recently launched venture
wunderite
$
3M
crowdfunding
$
2,425,850
raised by founders since 2018
33
coaching sessions ready stage
224
increased 36% from last year
pitches ready stage
94
increased 49% from last year
set stage
41
increased 28% from last year
whiteboarding sessions
63
entrepreneurs in residence
4
34
Marc Meyer, Bob Lentz, Greg Collier, Steve Golden
ventures highlighted in IDEA media
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ventures that offer co-ops 22 co-op positions in 11 different ventures
instaversal oasys visualisd ARTST boston microgreens linksquares mavrck boston materials, inc. phoenix tailings busright partrunner deliveries, inc.
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cohor the
model
This year we introduced the first-ever ‘cohort model’ to support our ventures. The cohort model is a Ready stage program where founders at a similar stage were grouped together while moving through the venture-building process at IDEA. The cohort model has 3 primary objectives: 1. Increase sense of community between ventures 2. Increase speed when moving through the IDEA venture building process 3. Exposure to venture building resources at IDEA, Northeastern, and the Boston venture ecosystem For the 1st Cohort we had 13 ventures and the program ran for 6 weeks with 5 live virtual sessions. These sessions included: • 10+ Mosaic community representatives • 2 Go Stage ventures from IDEA • 2 members of the Boston entrepreneurship ecosystem joining from Glasswing Ventures and MassMutual Ventures 36
rt Within these 6 weeks, 4 of the 13 cohort founders moved from Ready to Set Stage, and an even higher percentage of ventures moved from a New Venture Information Session to Ready Stage, and finally to Pitch for Set Stage. With the 1st cohort model being a success and our team getting plenty of feedback, next year the program will become a core part of the Ready Stage and we will aim to run the cohort model in a repetitive and quicker format with a new cohort taking place every month.
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n
ventures in the Paul Chen (Mahaton Disinfection) distributed masks in May 2020. BusRight just raised $2.5M & distributed food during pandemic. Slate on Shark Tank, partners with USA Bobsled/Skeleton teams, raised $1.7M, expands, and is a finalist in the New York Startup Comptetion MilkLaunch. F(x) foods was on a panel discussing what is it is like to have a have a side hustle while working full time. Mount and Hatchtrack were in MassChallenge. Henry Palmer of LochTree was listed as best and brightest for Poets & Quants. Rachel Domb won the Husky Startup Challenge in the fall. Better than Belts had a successful kickstarter, raising over $11,000. SkipIt with Max Zang won $5k in Shark Tank: Saving Lives Edition competition. Foodspace was one of 21 startups to watch in Boston & was in the Salesforce Accelerate Build Cohort. Mount founder Madi Rifkin was one of Colorado’s Under 25. Ornami Brands won Round 2 grant from Bey Good.
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news
e
Launched venture Fortify raised $20M.
Peak State raised over $15,000 in a kickstarter! Rahoo Baby launched Rahoo U, an online classroom for parents. Oyster Common was in the first cohort of the BlueSwell Incubator. LinkSquares announced the launch of LinkSquares Dashboard, the first customizable business intelligence tool for legal departments, and was E&Y finalist for entrepreneur of the year in New England. Vidhan Bhaiya (22), founder of Dr. Brinsley, was named among Bostinno 25 under 25. Mobile Pixels launches at Staples Connect. Wunderite raised $3M to build software for indie insurance agencies.
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NEXPO
NEXPO is Northeastern University’s entrepreneurship exposition hosted by IDEA. Celebrating the culmination of Global Entrepreneurship Week, NEXPO features IDEA ventures, more Northeastern ventures, and the resources that support them in the school’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. This year’s theme was resilience and we were proud to have IDEA founders presenting today who have embodied this through various pivots, pushing through blockers and hard work. NEXPO gave the opportunity to virtually speak face-to-face with some of IDEA’s most resilient ventures and expand knowledge on the continuous innovation and entrepreneurship happening at Northeastern, by hopping in and out of 14 ventures and 7 Mosaic virtual booths.
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372 16 21 registrants
attendees from
countries
booths
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pitchathon After a short hiatus IDEA has brought back Pitchathon this Spring semester! Pitchathon is an entrepreneurship exhibition and this year it featured 12 IDEA ventures this year across a wide breadth of industries. The event represented an opportunity for founders to give a 5 minute pitch of their venture in front of investors and industry experts, and it gave attendees the possibility to connect with and learn the unique stories of each founder, while celebrating the entrepreneurship ecosystem within the Northeastern community.
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267 13
registrants attendees from
countries
new venture information session
New Venture Information Sessions give an overview of the IDEA process and how to begin developing a concept. In these sessions, incoming ventures learn more about IDEA, the stage gate process, the resources that would be available to them. For new ventures, this is the first step to becoming a part of IDEA. 43
diversity & inclusion The academic year 2020-2021 has seen new challenges and priorities rise up to the top, the most important one being promoting equity and social justice. This is why we decided to add a section about our impact on the community’s diversity and inclusion. While IDEA doesn’t officially keep track of the demographics of our community, we were able to make meaningful changes in the organization in order to make it a safe space for anyone who joins and promote creativity among people with different backgrounds. RECRUITMENT FOR MANAGEMENT TEAM • Changed language for recruitment to be more approachable. We reduced language suggesting firm requirements needed from candidates and increased language about attributes that would help someone in the role. • Included information about our values in all role descriptions and applications to show candidates that a culture of inclusion and belonging is important to IDEA. • Reached out to a significantly wider pool of organizations with a variety of cultural backgrounds and specializations at Northeastern to share our Management team applications and encourage minorities and non-business students to apply to our program. 44
COMMUNITY • We utilized Northeastern’s resources and collaborated with organizations such as CIE Social Justice Resource Center (SJRC), The Office of Prevention and Education (OPEN), and The Women’s Interdisciplinary Society of Entrepreneurship (WISE) in our early brainstorming and for continuous support, to learn how to better listen to our community and properly highlight community members. • Included requesting pronouns, and preferred pronunciation of names as part of onboarding, in our efforts to be more thoughtful and respectful of our team members, and to avoid making assumptions on someone’s identity. • Replaced one of our monthly management team meetings with a Title IX session hosted by the Office of Prevention and Education at Northeastern (OPEN) to educate members and promote awareness around sex-based discrimination. • Created a #diversityinitiative channel on Slack to foster conversation and organize meetings about diversity and inclusion. • Formalized and facilitated inflow from different accelerators on campus into the IDEA Program, such as E-Club’s Husky Start-up Challenge, and WISE’s WeBuild Program. This helped ensure that anyone interested in taking a step towards entrepreneurship was able to continue their journey with minimal roadblocks - no matter their background. • Launched the campaign #OnceUponanIDEA on our external platforms, which aimed at telling and amplifying the stories of IDEA entrepreneurs that come from different backgrounds, with the goal to celebrate the diversity in our community. While we are proud of the efforts made to make a difference within IDEA and the wider entrepreneurship community, we stay aware that this is only the beginning of a long path that the organization will need to follow in the upcoming future, and we are optimistic that the new team will keep making incredible efforts to promote diversity and inclusivity in the community. 45
our resou 46
urces 48 funding 50 coaches 52 advisory board 54 a thank you to Ron Caplan 56 partners 60 20/21 management team 62 thank you to our donors 64 join our team
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fundin alpha fund
The Alpha Fund is for postdocs, graduate students, lab directors, alumni, and select undergraduate students in STEM-related fields who need financial support to develop Proof of Concepts or Functional Prototypes of products and systems in fields that include but are not restricted to the life sciences, medical equipment, materials, AI/ ML, advanced electronics, materials science, and IoT. These PoCs or Prototypes must either leverage existing IP (University or selfowned) or describe clearly the potential to generate new IP as well as important functional outcomes for the intended application(s). Moreover, the proposed technology should be beyond the basic scientific experimental stage (e.g. not pure research) and the proposed applications of the technology first vetted with target users through programs such as I-Corps, IDEA, Generate, and related programs. Co-Managed by: IDEA, Generate, Origin, Marc Meyer Max. Fund Amount (Per Grant): $5,000 Frequency: Once per semester
undergraduate prototype fund 48
The Prototype Fund supports the development of commercial products. The fund’s intentions are to provide financial support when beginning early-stage development and testing of a product or service, and to enable creators to design, build, and test new
ng
d
products and services as they establish the creative concept behind the prototype, the specifications and cost to build it, and the plans for testing it. We fund hardware and system-level prototypes, as well as concept and product test runs. The Undergraduate Prototype fund takes place five times each year (specifically, every “even month” except June). The deadlines to apply are February 1, April 1, August 1, October 1, and December 1. Co-Managed by: IDEA, Generate, Origin Max. Fund Amount (Per Grant): $1,500 Max. Times to Receive Grant: 2 (for one concept)
gap fund
The IDEA Gap Fund is a $10,000 non-equity educational grant available to ventures in the Go stage of IDEA’s process. The Gap Fund’s purpose is to fill a particular need for a company (to close a gap). There must be a clear and well-defined need for the funding to reach a key milestone, otherwise, the request will likely be rejected. Grants are available for applicants on a bi-monthly basis. Applications are reviewed by IDEA’s student Investment Committee before being selected to pitch in front of members of IDEA’s Advisory Board. Max. Fund Amount (Per Grant): $10,000 Max. Times to Receive Grant: 3 Frequency: 6 times a year
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coach The coaches program provides our Ready and Set Stage ventures with a network of individuals who have experience with entrepreneurship. Coaches are volunteers with 1-2 years of work experience and are passionate about helping our startups succeed. Coaches work in two stages, Ready and Set. This year we worked with 18 Ready Stage coaches who focus on value proposition development and help to refine solution design. These coaches also evaluate our ventures and determine which ventures are ready to move forward to Pitch. Set stage coaching focuses on business model development and go-to-market strategy. Departing from our traditional approach of 1:1 pairing, Set Stage ventures can now work with any coach to encourage ventures to develop their ideas with the input of multiple perspectives. This year we worked with 23 Set Stage coaches with experience in a wide range of industries such as consulting, finance, tech, science, healthcare, and business modeling.
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hes READY STAGE
SET STAGE
Aniyah Smith
Adam Greenstein
Austin Chinal
Ben Samson
Austin Jones
Ryan Khow
Caroline Klaey
Evan Sutherland
Dominic DiGioia
Gregory Dobak
Emmett Kiernan
Ilka Alcantara
Evan Sutherland
Joanna Zanghi
Greg Dobak
Johnny Fayad
Jeff Wang
Josh Kazlauskas
Karen Atty
Jonathan Chambers
Kevin Jin
Joyce Hsieh
Mina Iskarous
Joydeep Singh
Sanjay Manival Raju
Kevin (Taeyoon) Jin
Sanna Tietjen
Marc Sella
Siyu Wu
Max Thalheimer
Stacy Gordon
Michael Brenndoerfer
Steven Geldart
Paula Quintana
Vidhan Bhaiya
Say Praneeth Macherla Samuel Bacon Scott Breece Teddy Blank Vikas Gupta Y-Lan Nguyen
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Rich Corley G
Scott Goldthwaite G
Robin Devereux W G
board Steve Deasy G
George Gong G
advisory 52
Jim Bourdon W
W: Working Group G: Gap Fund Commitee
Krish Nangegadda W G
Roy Liu W G
Alan Mateo W
Chris Wolfel W
Kate Murdock W
Neel Desai W
Abhi Balakrishnan W
Bailey Kane W
Matt Katzman W G
d
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Ron Capla
a thank you to
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Ron Caplan, DMSB’72, is the epitome of a successful entrepreneur, dynamic leader, and a dedicated Northeastern alumnus. After graduating from Northeastern, he moved to Philadelphia and entered the real estate business. Shortly after, he founded PMC Property group, a real estate management company, which he has since grown from a small collection of single-family homes into one of the largest management companies in Philadelphia with a strong presence along the East Coast. For more than 25 years, he has been actively engaged in acquiring, financing, renovating, and managing residential and commercial real estate. Already a strong advocate of entrepreneurship at Northeastern for many years, Mr. Caplan has generously stepped up to support the IDEA Gap Fund for the next 5 years, providing invaluable resources to founders at a critical stage in their ventures. His gift will enable even more Go stage ventures to make the leap and successfully bring their ideas to fruition. We are truly grateful for this inspirational commitment and thank Ron from the bottom of our hearts for his incredible generosity.
n an
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partners health sciences entrepreneurs
Health Sciences Entrepreneurs (HSE) promotes health sciences innovation within the Northeastern community by educating and equipping Northeastern student, faculty and alumni health start-ups with resources for success through specialized education and handson mentoring. HSE mentors the entrepreneur not the idea, creating a strong enterprising foundation for all entrepreneurs that participate in the program.
national science foundation innovation corps The Northeastern University National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps Site Program is designed to help scientists and engineers begin the process of commercializing STEM-related research and innovation. I-Corps provides students, PhD students, faculty, lab researchers, and alumni a training program with 6 sessions to learn. 56
s
mosaic IDEA is part of Mosaic, an alliance of entrepreneurially-spirited people who share a passion for building and leading new products, programs, and organizations. It offers services that allow the community to share their work experiences, meet informally and in-person in multiple cities, and exchange ideas and content on critical topics facing their companies and/or careers as builders and leaders.
office of alumni relations The Office of Alumni Relations helps alumni stay in touch with lifelong communities, keep learning, access career strategies, engage with thought leaders and idea-generators, and find the resources they need to achieve what’s next.
center for research inovation The Center for Research Innovation pairs solution-oriented research with real-world needs for the enrichment of society through the protection, acceleration, and commercialization of Northeastern Innovation.
mccarthy(s) venture mentoring network The McCarthy(s) Venture Mentoring Network (VMN) is a university wide resource available to all Northeastern student, faculty, and alumni ventures. The goal of the VMN is to pair Northeastern entrepreneurs with high-quality, experienced mentors that can help address business challenges and make our ventures more successful. 57
Northeastern University Center for Entrepreneurship Education NUCEE is the sponsoring organization for IDEA at Northeastern University.
NUCEE helps Northeastern’s entrepreneurial community achieve success through educational programming and individually guided application of three essential venture development capabilities: product, system, and service design; business model design; strategies for venture finance with introductions to the regional investor community.
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external partners
IDEA works in conjunction with various other companies and organizations that aid both the management team as well as the ventures they support and work with.
p
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idea
management t
EXECUTIVE
TECHNOLOGY & ANALYTICS
Elizabeth Cavallo (she/her) Aaisha Balakrishnan (she/her)
Caroline Ghio (she/her) Breanna Madison (she/her) Jeff Weintraub (he/him) Daniel Broun (he/his) Tanay Karnik (he/his) Clayton Yan (he/him) Ryan Kennedy (he/him)
COMMUNITY & OPERATIONS Caroline Sikes (they/them) Serena Tian (she/her) Stephen Grello (he/him) Max Rampulla (he/him) Jenny James (she/her) Sanjana Koushik (she/her) Danny Chinn (he/him)
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EVENTS Kaitlyn Tian (she/her) Elina Agrawal (she/her) Kenneth Kan (he/his) Sonya Churkin (she/her) Nawreen Ahamad (she/her)
team MARKETING
VENTURE
Carolina Bellani (she/her) Jacqueline Zhao (she/her) Rick Song (he/him) Juan Leal Trevino (he/him) Christopher Cohen (he/him) Nick Jerome (he/him) Thandiwe Tembo (she/her) Gigi Gleghorn (she/her) Jared Kronlund (he/him) Garett Huang (he/him) Nick Hirano (he/him) Emily Gringorten (she/her)
Karan Kishorepuria (he/him) Kyle Dolce (he/him) Deniz Khalfa (him/his) Katharine McGuire (she/her) Tu Trinh (she/her) Caroline Klaey (she/her) Joshua Speck (him/his) Mattia Astoria (he/him) Gustaf Palm (him/his) Alexis Babb (she/her) Joyce Hsieh (she/her) Jessica Ye (she/her) Michael Suh (he/him) Sarthak Bhandari (he/him) Vikram Pathalam (he/him) Max Zhang (he/him) Morrisa Clayman (she/her) Danielle Vandre (she/her) Oliver Key (he/him) Niklas Janssen (he/him) John D’Alotto (he/him) Sasha Henry (he/his) Maya Gandhi (she/her) Shane Mitnick (he/him) Marc Bacvanski (he/his)
ROTATIONAL ASSOCIATES Cody Kennedy (he/him) Alexandra Stern (she/her) Robert Yang (he/him)
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thank you to our donors
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To our generous donors – thank you. You never hesitate to support new ideas. You are always ready and poised to accelerate new ventures. You enthusiastically mentor the creative, driven, and resilient individuals who are bringing their projects and concepts to life. On this stage you uplift the next generation of global entrepreneurs who are beginning to craft the change, innovation, and social good of tomorrow. With your help, IDEA creates an ecosystem where new concepts are given an opportunity to grow; they are met at each milestone with support, encouragement, and inspiration. This unique environment is no accident, but rather made possible by those who understand the significance and importance in allowing entrepreneurship to flourish. The innovators who succeed, those who pour endless hours into cultivating and crafting their diverse ideas, do so with the help of partners. Partners like you. Thank you. On behalf of all of us at IDEA, thank you for understanding that even the greatest concept starts small and needs support, support like yours. Together we will continue to foster a community of entrepreneurship where new ideas are given every opportunity to grow and flourish. Experiential education is paramount to whatmakes Northeastern and the D’Amore-McKim School of Business so special, and IDEA allows our students to experience their learning without boundaries. Your continued loyalty is helping to expand what it means for education to truly be experiential. This simply would not be possible without your help. Our successes, past, present and future, are also yours. Thank you for your continued belief in creativity, innovation, and the power of the Northeastern network. 63
join o team MANAGEMENT
If you’re an undergraduate student at Northeastern with a passion for entrepreneurship, keep an eye out for our team applications, positions generally open up around a month or two before the end of the semester to be part of it the following one. Follow us on social media to up to date with important deadlines. You could have the opportunity to join one of our amazing teams and connect with unique people in our community! Instagram. @ideaneu LinkedIn. IDEA: Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator Facebook. @IDEA.NEU Twitter. @IDEANEU Website. http://www.northeastern.edu/idea Email. idea@neu.edu 64
our m
Want to contribute to the IDEA’s impact on the entrepreneurship ecosystem? VENTURES
If you are an entrepreneur and need help to turn your idea into a real venture, please attend one of our biweekly New Venture Information Sessions to find out how to get involved with IDEA and what the next steps will look like.
COACH If you’re an alumni, master’s student, or subject matter expert and don’t have a venture but you still want to get involved with us, apply to become a coach! There are two ways to get involved as a Coach, either as a Ready Stage Coach or a Venture Coach. Find out more about the coaching program here: https://www. northeastern.edu/idea/get-started/coach/ Apply to be a coach here: https://www.tfaforms.com/4660762 65
IDEA
Northeastern University’s Student-Led Venture Accelerator Impact Report for 2020/2021
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