NYU fosters a University-wide startup ecosystem that encourages multi-disciplinary collaboration, accelerates innovation, and cultivates the next generation of startup leaders. The University's team of startup experts offers educational programming and events, industry-specific resources, and funding support to help inspire, educate, connect, and accelerate entrepreneurs from across NYU.
See our impact in 2019! Read our Annual Report now.
We help startups start up. By guiding entrepreneurs, inspiring would-be entrepreneurs, and cross-pollinating students and faculty from different disciplines, we are at the center of a startup ecosystem designed to transform brilliant ideas into successful commercial solutions. Since the founding of the NYU Innovation Venture Fund in 2010, we have accelerated the pace of technology commercialization and helped launch successful startups founded by our talented community of students, faculty, and researchers.
The NYU Entrepreneurial Institute leads University-wide initiatives to launch successful startups and commercialize technology created by NYU’s 60,000 students, faculty and researchers. We are team of startup experts that offers educational programming and events, and help identify funding opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Leslie eLabThe Mark and Debra Leslie Entrepreneurs Lab is a 6,800 sq-ft space where entrepreneurs from across NYU can connect, collaborate, and explore how to turn ideas and inventions into startups. The Leslie eLab offers vast array of resources available to the NYU community.
Visit the Leslie eLab
Carol heads the marketing and communications for the Institute team. She is an Adobe Creative Suite wiz and a stickler for efficiency. She graduated from NYU Steinhardt, with a major in Media, Culture, and Communication and a minor in Web Development and Applications. Carol is also a professional photographer and a vintage camera enthusiast.
Dee is a Venture Associate for the NYU Innovation Venture Fund, focusing on investment opportunities in life science and healthcare. Prior to joining the Fund, Dee did product development and intellectual property strategy in therapeutics and diagnostics for Ludwig Cancer Research. Dee holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics /Developmental Biology from Columbia University.
Emily is Programs Manager for the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute where she coaches and supports early-stage entrepreneurs. She is also the Managing Director of Reboot Democracy, a non-profit bridging the worlds of tech, business, and democracy. In a prior life, Emily founded a wearable tech company in San Francisco while serving as an EIR at Citrix where she co-created the curriculum and taught the Citrix Startup Accelerator’s Innovators Program.
Frank heads the Entrepreneurial Institute and is the Managing Director of the NYU Innovation Venture Fund which invests in early stage NYU startups. He is a member of the national teaching team for the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program and an Adjunct Faculty at the NYU School of Engineering. He has been a venture capitalist for over 15 years.
Jen is the Senior Operations Manager for the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute, where she manages the Leslie eLab, the Institute's finances, and leads events, including the Entrepreneurs Festival. She is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer and previously worked at the UN World Food Programme. Jen holds an M.A. in International Relations from St. John’s University.
Rebecca serves as the Associate Director of the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute, where she leads operations and major programs, and supports entrepreneurs focused on socio-environmental challenges. Rebecca is also adjunct faculty at both the School of Visual Arts and Parsons School for Design, teaching entrepreneurship, design and sustainability.
Sarah is the Senior Program Manager for the Entrepreneurial Institute where she leads educational programs for NYU startups, manages the mentor network and grows external partnerships. Prior to joining the Institute, Sarah worked at General Assembly and Stanford University. Sarah holds an M.A. in Comparative International Education from Columbia University.
Sergei Revzin is a Venture Associate for the NYU Innovation Venture Fund where he leads all technology investments. He is also a co-host of The Mentors podcast, and has mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs through his work as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at national nonprofit Venture for America where he ran the organization's accelerator and first venture fund. Prior to this, Sergei was a founder and early employee at several high growth startups.
Aliyah is a senior at NYU Stern studying marketing and entrepreneurship. She is extremely passionate about entrepreneurship, travel, and fashion and is interested in creating social enterprises in order to create large social good in the world. A two time recipient of the NYU Stern Social Impact Stipend, Aliyah is interested in meshing social justice and entrepreneurship together in order to uplift and empower low income communities within New York City.
Chris is a Venture Fellow at the NYU Innovation Venture Fund and is completing her MBA at Stern. She started her career as a buyer for Macy's, Inc. After years of selecting the companies to be stocked in stores, she wanted to work more closely with the entrepreneurs behind the labels. During her time at Stern, she's been an MBA Associate for a consumer fund, The Ember Company, and an MBA Fellow at Cleo Capital. She's a Chapter Co-Lead for the SoGal Foundation, an Advisor to Caribbeans in Tech and Entrepreneurship and a Committee Member at BLCK VC.
Daniel is joining us for a second year as a Venture Fellow. He is a Venture GM at Create, a venture studio based in New York City, and invests in software at Harlem Capital, a diversity-focused fund. He is an InSITE fellow and a deal lead at New York Angels. He is completing his MBA at the NYU Stern School of Business. Previously, he worked with Draft Ventures, an early investor in Notion, Dfinity, Thrive Market, and many other companies, and at Antler and Alpaca VC. He also co-founded Upkey, an EdTech company.
Ellie is a junior in Steinhardt studying Media, Culture, and Communication with a minor in Web Programming. She is incredibly excited to be a co-chair of this year’s NYU Entrepreneurs Festival. Ellie is a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and Bite Club, NYU’s online food publication. She has a passion for food, travel, design, and empowering young voters. Ellie works at an ad agency with a mission to spread the word about local political campaigns.
Graham is a junior in Courant studying Math with minors in Computer Science and Italian. He's a second year intern working on community programs and engagement. He's been involved with the startup community at NYU since freshman year and is looking to start his own... as soon as he gets an idea. Graham spends his free time with an NYU club called Bite Club, a food publication that runs events for the NYU community. He's a hobby botanist and ice cream enthusiast!
Major is a senior in Steinhardt studying Media, Culture, and Communication with minors in Computer Science and Web Programming. He has been a member of the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival for two years. Major is excited to help introduce the festival and its mission to those who are curious about entrepreneurship at NYU. He is passionate about human-centered design, media studies, disability studies, and how entrepreneurship takes place in these areas of interest. Major has experience working with both smaller tech startups such as LeanDNA and working at large corporations such as NBCUniversal.
Amazon Web Services offers a broad set of global compute, storage, database, analytics, application, and deployment services that help organizations move faster, lower IT costs, and scale applications.
Our mission is to close equity gaps in America. We’re a venture fund investing in visionary entrepreneurs building scalable businesses with social impact.
Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars was created to stimulate campus entrepreneurship and help drive economic development in students' local communities.
Drift helps companies engage in real-time, personalized conversations with the right customers at the right time, so they can build trust and accelerate revenue.
EisnerAmper offers responsive accounting, consulting and tax services with an entrepreneurial focus, providing clients with smart, analytical insights delivered in an approachable style.
For more than four decades, Fenwick & West LLP has helped some of the world’s most recognized companies become, and remain, market leaders.
First Republic and its subsidiaries offer private banking, private business banking and private wealth management, including investment, trust and brokerage services.
Lowenstein Sandler is a national law firm with over 300 lawyers working from five offices in New York, Palo Alto, New Jersey, Utah and Washington, D.C. We represent clients in virtually every sector of the global economy, with particular strength in the areas of technology, life sciences, and the financial management and fund industries that fuel economic growth.
McCarter & English, LLP is a firm of over 400 lawyers with offices in Boston, Hartford, Stamford, New York, Newark, East Brunswick, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Washington, DC. In continuous business for more than 170 years, we are among the oldest and largest law firms in America.
Santander has been serving customers in the Northeast since 2013. It’s our mission to help you prosper. How do we do it? With simple ways to spend, save, and manage your money better. From teaching your high schooler how to set up and use a checking account to helping you buy your first home, we’ll be there, right by your side.
Two Sigma Ventures invests in companies run by highly driven people with potentially world-changing ideas. They seek out companies using technology, computing, mathematics, or data to tackle hard problems, and aim to help them thrive.
VentureWell is a higher education network that cultivates revolutionary ideas and promising inventions.
Wiggin and Dana is a full-service law firm with 150 lawyers that represents clients throughout the country and abroad from our offices in Connecticut, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Palm Beach.
Clayton Bryan (Stern MBA '15) is an early stage venture investor and operator. Clayton has spent time at some of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley. He has built expansive online communities, scaled marketplace businesses, and facilitated million dollar deals. At Yahoo he worked on award winning products and helped lead a team pioneer a new set of tools that started the social commerce movement. With Diversity as a guiding principle, Clayton has spent the entirety of his career within venture capital focused on supporting underrepresented founders.
David Hirsh (SPS '90) is a real estate investor with more than 30 years of experience across all major real estate product types in most major US markets. David has completed in excess of $30 billion in transactions. His skills include: portfolio management, leasing, asset sales/dispositions, lending, and workouts/restructuring.
Di-Ann (Steinhardt ‘94) started the US office in 2009 and is now the CEO at byCore, where she is supporting the construction workforce of the future. Previously, she was the Director of Growth for crowd-sourced navigation and real-time traffic application at Waze (acquired by Google 2013).
Nedal (CAS '00) is a Co-Founder and the Chief Strategy Officer of CityMD Urgent Care. He has served in several academic and administrative roles, with appointments at both Saint Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital and The Valley Hospital. He continues to serve as an associate professor at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Paul is a Distinguished Scientist in Residence at NYU, and previously served as NYU's Senior Vice Provost for Research and Senior Vice Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship, Tandon School of Engineering. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of the NY Academy of Science and is a founding partner of Venly Corp. He previously served as Senior VP and Director of Research at IBM.
Josh (Stern '14) is a Founding Partner of Moving Capital, an early stage investment fund focused on mobility and logistics. He led Uber's New York metro area business, overseeing the company's largest market for more than five years. Josh was previously a Managing Partner at Tusk Ventures and is a prolific angel investor.
Ragy Thomas (Stern MBA '03) is the CEO & Founder of Sprinklr. Over the past 15+ years he has played an instrumental role in the evolution of two business-critical channels for the enterprise: social media and email. As founder and CEO of Sprinklr, the leading Customer Experience Management (CXM) platform, his mission is to enable every organization on the planet to make their customers happier.
Steve (Tisch '84) is a gaming industry expert, investor, and serial entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Golden Hearts Gaming, Inc. Previously, he was the co-founder and CEO of digital games and database marketing platform developer LuckyLabs, which was acquired by InfoScout, Inc. in 2014. Steven has also been a Director, Advisor and investor in various media, tech, consumer products and financial services companies.
