After working with more than 400 companies from Harvard, we’ve encountered many passionate young founders who are our classmates, friends, and fellow hungry entrepreneurs. We believe in the promise of the Harvard startup ecosystem, and we want to give back to this community. Thus, HUCP has started a range of programs to support local entrepreneurs and provide research-backed insights to our local startups.

The Innovation Fund

The Innovation Fund aims to support early-stage entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds by providing them with equity-free grants, in addition to access to our vast network of mentorship from VC and angel investor partners totaling $250B+ AUM. We select teams through the criteria below, giving them access to education and platform partnerships to accelerate their businesses:

• Idea: Team presents an ambitious idea that addresses an important issue, a concrete solution that contains different perspectives, and an action plan that will impact real communities and which is not solely based on intuition.

• Team: Members are current Harvard-affiliated students or alumni who demonstrate committed personal investment, technical ability, and entrepreneurial vision.

• Vision: Solution includes ways to continue developing the product and furthering knowledge and innovation over the course of the grant period. 

Entrepreneurship Board

We work with a network of ten student organizations across all of Harvard’s graduate and undergraduate schools, from Women in Computer Science to the Harvard Society of Black Scientists and Engineers, to plan recruiting and speaker events aimed at increasing access to the world of venture capital.

Fireside Chats

We’re bringing wisdom from some of the world’s greatest investors and founders straight to students with our fireside chat series, which are open to the whole university community. Our past speakers include Bessemer Venture Partners investor Kent Bennett, Quizlet founder Andrew Sutherland, Make School founder Jeremy Rossmann, and more—keep an eye out for our next public fireside chat, you’re invited!

Think our fireside chats, but an entire week of them, interspersed with one-on-one office hours with investors and networking with your fellow entrepreneurs. We’ve hosted individuals like Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel, Amazon Alexa Fund Partner Kareem Akhtar, Brex CFO Michael Tannenbaum, and more in our student-centric startup accelerators.

Startup Accelerators

Investment Thesis Series

Our year-round thesis research teams produce in-depth analysis on various sectors of the economy. Check out our latest S21 report on exponential trends in technology—produced in partnership with and presented to investors at Sequoia and Softbank—as well as a S20 report about the impact of COVID-19 on three different industries.