BOSTON—Harvard Business School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship has announced 16 teams for the 2025 Rock Accelerator. The Rock Accelerator is a competitive summer track within the Rock Summer Fellows program, designed for rising second year students at HBS who are serious about building a startup. This year’s selected teams will participate in a rigorous, hands-on experience that includes weekly cohort sessions, bi-weekly one-on-one coaching, and advisory board engagements.
“The Rock Accelerator is an intense, high-impact opportunity for founders to explore, test, and accelerate their ventures over 12 weeks. What sets it apart is the freedom to make bold moves—to build, break, and reinvent—all with the support of world-class programming, experienced coaches, and a vibrant community of peers,” said Thara Pillai, director of the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.
Participants are chosen based on the strength of their venture concept, depth of customer discovery, and a demonstrated commitment to focus, execution, and peer-driven learning. The Rock Accelerator provides the guidance, support, and accountability student founders need to move from exploration to traction.
“The Rock Accelerator gives students a way to take a real shot at building something—with structure, accountability, and a community around them,” said Shikhar Ghosh, MBA Class of 1961 Professor of Management Practice of Business Administration, and faculty co-chair for the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. “It’s a fixed period where they can test an idea, work without a roadmap, and see what it actually feels like to be a founder—without having to bet everything right away.”
“Many past participants have called the Rock Accelerator a turning point—the moment they truly stepped into entrepreneurship and uncovered ideas that transformed their path,” Pillai added. “If you’re serious about launching something meaningful, there’s no better way to spend the summer between your first and second year at business school.”
Past participants in the Rock Accelerator include Jon Staff (MBA 2016), founder and CEO of Postcard Cabins (formerly Getaway, acquired by Marriott Bonvoy), thoughtfully designed cabins for private stays in natural locations; Tess Michaels (MBA 2020), founder and CEO of Clasp (formerly Stride Funding), a fintech venture that bridges the gap between education and employment; and Pascal Kriesche (MBA 2019), co-founder of Smoodi, a self-serve smart blender for retail that requires no labor to operate.
The Rock Accelerator is designed to offer one-on-one coaching and peer support for teams as they navigate the challenging tasks of launching their startup, bringing in serial entrepreneurs such as Carolyn Childers, co-founder and former CEO of Chief; Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, co-founder of Gilt and Glamsquad; and Donna Levin, co-founder of Care.com and current CEO of Babson College’s Arthur M. Blank School for Entrepreneurship.
Teams in this year’s cohort are tackling a wide range of problems—from regulatory compliance to women’s health to climate solutions—reflecting both the depth and diversity of innovation coming out of HBS.
The 16 teams in the 2025 Rock Accelerator are:
Acorn
Sam Siegel (MBA 2026), Founder
Acorn is a platform to connect urban real estate assets with latent electrical capacity to high-intensity compute users—such as cloud providers, AI startups, and AV fleets—who need rapid deployment of digital infrastructure (data center deployments, AV charging stations, etc).
Calena
Facundo Aguirre (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Lucia Lammertyn (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Calena is an AI-powered back-office SaaS for Latin American psychologists, offering a marketplace model that digitalizes their practice and seamlessly connects them with patients across the globe.
Dave
Charles Graham (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Devina Kumar (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Lizzie Speed (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Dave is a platform that connects busy people to on-demand errand and chore support from trusted community members.
Foggy
Tre Mansdoerfer (MBA 2026), Founder
Foggy is a decentralized content delivery network (CDN) that uses unused storage and compute from smartphones to deliver digital content faster, cheaper, and closer to users. Foggy enables scalable, infrastructure-light delivery for media companies and cloud partners.
Frootful
William Gao (MS/MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Pavlos Konstas (MPA 2025), Co-Founder
Sharif Abdelrazeq (MPA 2025), Co-Founder
Frootful automates order processing for distributors.
Greenlight
Ayan Aidid (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Emma Morgan (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Greenlight is an AI-powered platform that helps literary agents and editors efficiently triage and evaluate manuscript submissions, enabling them to focus on discovering and cultivating exceptional new talent. By automating administrative tasks and delivering insightful market analysis, Greenlight transforms how the publishing industry identifies standout stories.
Jade Kitchen
Jessie Yang (MBA 2026), Founder
Jade Kitchen prepares healthy, homestyle Chinese meals for the busy professional. It is available for pick-up and delivery in Boston.
Lifelong Health
Joe Schwarzmann (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Feroze Mohideen (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Lifelong Health wants consumers to own their health, offering more than 100 lab tests and insights from top doctors across the UK and Europe, powering preventative healthcare, and allowing ordinary people to live 100 healthy years.
Luca IQ
Angelo Policicchio (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Akash Sadashivapeth (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Luca IQ is an AI-powered platform that helps tax firms operate more efficiently by automating client onboarding, document collection, communication, and the filing of individual tax returns —all within a secure, streamlined system. By handling the bulk of routine tasks, Luca IQ frees up CPAs to focus on advising clients and building relationships.
Lyv Health
Jennifer Arnold (MS/MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Andrea Corleto (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Lyv Health is a longevity concierge for women, designed to increase health span and performance. By combining diagnostics, symptom tracking, and AI-powered insights, Lyv delivers personalized guidance on nutrition, exercise, supplements, and prescriptions to support women through pivotal life stages, starting with perimenopause and beyond. Lyv is backed by Pear VC.
Mixed LC Media
Oishik Saha (MS/MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Alexander Ivanov, Co-Founder
Michal Gregus, Co-Founder
Mixed LC Media is improving protein detection for biopharma companies and academic labs using better chromatography columns (nanoLC).
Node
Sagar Lal (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Kyle Tsai-Simek (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
Node is a new social web browser that offers relevant user-generated content (ratings, comments, live chat, photos), which perfectly complements the user’s current browsing journey with fun or helpful content.
OvaVision
Natalie Trono (MBA 2026), Co-Founder
OvaVision’s mission is to help IVF patients feel more in control of their fertility journey by providing accurate, personalized AI-powered monitoring tools.
RentOui
Katie Pfleger (MBA 2026), Founder
RentOui is an AI-powered platform helping users rent, resell, and monetize fashion more seamlessly—building on its foundation as a peer-to-peer marketplace for luxury wardrobe access.
ReportCaddy
Chris Molteno (MBA 2026), Founder
ReportCaddy is an AI platform for managing and automating the preparation of regulatory compliance reporting in the US energy sector.
UpcycleX
Jonathan Medina (MBA 2026), Founder
UpcycleX is developing a novel, energy-efficient technology that transforms plastic waste into high-value chemicals under mild, environmentally friendly conditions. By leveraging a proprietary electrocatalytic process, the system breaks down discarded PET waste into components like terephthalic acid (TPA), which can be reused in textile or plastic production, and potassium diformate (KDF), a potential animal feed additive.
For more information, please visit the Rock Accelerator section of the Rock Summer Fellows page.
