The Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Accelerator 2023 Demo Day top prize went to Zette, a venture-backed media tech startup that gives readers pay-per-article access to paywalled publications, all while sharing revenue with newsrooms. Zette is led by Founder and CEO Yehong Zhu, a 2018 graduate of Harvard College.
For winning Demo Day, Zette received an invitation to the Startup World Cup and the chance to compete for a $1 million investment prize.
In addition to Zette, the investor panel identified two runners-up:
Beyond Education, a France-based education technology startup that is preparing students for the future by assessing and developing 21st-century competencies online and globally. Beyond Education’s co-founder, Michaela Horovathova, is a 2014 graduate of Harvard Graduate School of Education.
YeneHealth, the first femtech startup in Ethiopia that is unlocking the digital door of healthcare services for African women. Founder Kidist Tesfaye is a 2019 graduate of Harvard Graduate School of Education
Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs and Pegasus Tech Ventures joined forces in 2021 to offer a global virtual accelerator program for Harvard entrepreneurs and their startup companies. The program provided an intensive ten-week curriculum designed to help early-stage startup companies make the transition from starting up to scaling up and accelerating their growth. Eleven companies were selected to participate in the second cohort, out of a group of 101 qualified startup applicants. The companies covered a wide variety of technology sectors and spanned five continents around the globe, including South America, North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
The third Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Accelerator, Powered by Pegasus Tech Ventures is scheduled for Spring 2024. Applications for participation will be opened up this Fall.
The Accelerator is designed for seed and early-stage entrepreneurs who are ready to move beyond the startup stage and are looking for the tools and training needed to scale up their companies. The curriculum provides a combination of training in the application of valuable concepts and tools along with workshops and mentoring designed to enable entrepreneurs to apply these concepts and tools to the specific requirements of their businesses. To provide a highly personalized experience, the accelerator provides extensive mentoring support to address the specific needs of each company.
Startup World Cup
The winner of the 2023 Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Accelerator Demo Day is invited to compete at the global Startup World Cup championship event in San Francisco from September 28th-30th, 2022. At the event, the company will compete with over 70 regional champions from around the world for a $1 million grand prize, in the form of investment capital. Startup World Cup was founded by Pegasus Tech Ventures.
About Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs
Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs, Inc. (HAE) is a volunteer-managed non-profit organization with 19 Chapters worldwide, connecting over 18,000 Harvard alumni, faculty, students, and friends from across the University and throughout the world.
Since our beginnings, HarvardAE has served as a meeting place for entrepreneurial alumni, students, faculty and staff from all of Harvard's schools.
For more information, please check out www.harvardae.org
About Pegasus Tech Ventures
Pegasus Tech Ventures is a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley with $2 Billion in assets under management. Pegasus offers intellectual and financial capital to emerging technology companies around the world. In addition to offering institutional investors a top-tier venture capital investment approach, Pegasus also offers a unique Venture Capital-as-a-Service (VCaaS) model for large, global corporations that wish to partner with cutting-edge technology startups. Some of the 35+ corporations that have partnered with Pegasus include ASUS, Aisin (Toyota), SEGA, Sojitz, and NGK/NTK. With funds from these corporate partners, Pegasus has invested in over 200 companies, such as SpaceX, Airbnb, SoFi, Doordash, 23andMe, Bird, Color, Carbon, and many more.
Pegasus also founded and sponsors Startup World Cup, one of the biggest and richest startup
competitions in the world. Startup World Cup extends to over 70 countries across six continents, with a Grand Finale in Silicon Valley featuring a $1 million investment prize. The goal of Startup World Cup is to support regional innovation ecosystems and connect them to Silicon Valley.