Harvard Business School opens Startup Studio in NYC

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
Feb 29, 2016

Harvard Business School and its Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship recently opened its HBS Startup Studio for Harvard alumnus in New York City. The studio is the first off-campus facility for Harvard graduates that are practicing entrepreneurs.

 
The Startup Studio was created to build connections and collaborations among HBS alumni. The Studio, which is temporarily at WeWork at 1460 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, is a gathering place for HBS alumni in New York City as well as New York-based teams with at least one founder that graduated from Harvard Business School.
 
Teams gain access to the Studio by application, and they must have seed funding in excess of $500,000 and less than seven employees. The teams will reside at the Studio for up to eighteen months depending on their growth stage.

“HBS alumni in New York have been at the forefront of the surge in startups there with companies such as Birchbox, Blue Apron, Rent the Runway, Oscar, and Hello Alfred, to name a few,” said Jodi Gernon, director of the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. “For years, many of them have returned to HBS to interact, seek advice, and network with others facing similar challenges. Now they can do that by staying in New York and making use of our Startup Studio.”
 
The nine initial teams in the Startup Studio include Archway Health, Booya Fitness, Bringmethat, Bundle Organics, Greenshield, Legal Hero, Show Score, Summus and Tootelage. Each fledgling business represents a cross-section of industries including health care and fitness, food delivery, education, law and financial wellness.
 
Loyola University in Chicago graduate, Avani Patel joined HBS as the new director of the Studio. Patel holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a JD from the Northwestern University School of Law, and she most recently founded TrendSeeder, New York’s first fashion-focused accelerator.
 
The Startup Studio will move from WeWork to a permanent location this spring.