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This program is Part 3 in our

Startup Accelerator Program

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Summer Launchpad

Tue, June 9 - Thur, Aug. 6, 2026

The NYU Summer Launchpad is a 9-week accelerator for scalable startups. Selected ventures receive one-on-one mentorship with successful founders and investors, deep dive workshops on topics from sales, to how to raise VC funding, pro-bono legal services, $25,000 in Google Cloud credits, Ask Me Anything talks with notable founders and investors, 24/7 co-working space at the Leslie eLab, and $15,000 in non-dilutive funding, all in a dynamic and community-minded atmosphere. The program concludes with a finale demo day in front of investors and mentors. Between 8-10 teams get selected to participate each year.

Read about the 2025 Summer Launchpad cohort here.

Application Deadline

Applications for the 2026 Summer Launchpad will open in mid February and will be due March 25th at 6pm ET. Note this is a shared application between the Summer Launchpad and Startup Sprint (i.e. you only need to fill out one application to be considered for both programs).

Who Can Apply?

Open to all NYU student, faculty, or staff-led teams who have:

Validated their target customer segment and initial solution
Are building a highly-scalable, differentiated venture
Teams who have a proof of concept/prototype

Benefits

$15,000 in zero-equity, non-dilutive grant funding toward your venture.
A team of entrepreneur and investor mentors
Finale demo day in front of investors and mentors
Pro-bono legal guidance
24/7 co-working space and free lunch at the Leslie eLab all summer

Success Stories

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A platform that connects artists and venues to create unforgettable shows.

Mir Hwang

Co-founder

(CAS '19)

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Baton is a blockchain-enabled collaboration protocol designed to facilitate the future of creative digital exchange to help artists maintain control over their material and get the credit they deserve.

Gabe Warshaw

Founder

(Tisch '23)

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Visura is a curated market-network for publishers to discover and hire the world’s top freelance visual journalists.

Adriana Teresa Letorney

Co-founder

(GSAS '21)

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Matching individuals with quality therapists to ease access to a personalized healing relationship and enable therapists to help more people.

Alyssa Petersel

Founder & CEO

(Silver '17)

Meet the Founder

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Offering affordable, deconstructable, and stylish furniture for modern and transient living with a focus on financial flexibility. Through a buy-back program, Sabai Design solves the headache of disposal/reselling and offers an even cheaper line of refurbished furniture.

Phantila Phataraprasit

Co-Founder & CEO

(Law '20)

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Brooklinen was built to deliver simple, beautiful home essentials at a fair price.

Rich Fulop

Co-founder

(Stern '14)

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Dathic creates an AI-based platform for CPG that understands the US Hispanic consumers, recommends the best locations to grow and connect communities with the products they love.

Laura Rocha

Co-founder

(Wagner '20)

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Frich is the first social finance app that enables Gen Z to develop mindful spending habits by setting goals together with friends and keeping each other accountable. Imagine a fitness app but for your finances.

Aleksandra Medina

Founder

(Abu Dhabi '21)

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Building a pipeline into key roles in states for young leaders to close the talent gap and create better government.

Kyleigh Russ

Co-founder and COO

(Wagner '19)

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Jīvikā teaches mindfulness through micro-habits to reduce frontline caregiver burnout and attrition.

Ayman Mukerji

Founder and CEO

(Silver '21)

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Jones is a judgement-free journey to a vape-less life, through a personalized nicotine replacement subscription, behavioral support and digital community.

Caroline Huber

Co-Founder

(Stern '23)

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Kaizntree is an online platform that empowers small business owners who make their own products by streamlining their sales channels and simplifying their inventory management process.

Marcos Brisson

Co-Founder & CEO

(Shanghai '23)

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Bringing medical imaging into the future, allowing for clearer, faster, and more intuitive understanding of the human body.

Osamah Choudhry

Co-founder

(Langone)

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Rilla provides conversation intelligence software for outside sales and service. Industries such as roofing, solar, interior design, banking, and telco send sales representatives to talk to potential customers face to face in their homes and businesses. Rilla uses AI to automatically transcribe, analyze and give feedback to sales managers on their representatives’ performance with customers, enabling them to remotely monitor their teams, saving two to three days a week from having to accompany field sales reps on training calls.

Sebastian Jimenez

Founder & CEO

(CAS '18)

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Shop Rodeo is a mobile application that leverages short-form video content to streamline the discovery-to-checkout process for the young, socially-driven shopper and effectively compensates content creators for their direct impact on brand sales.

Lindsay Perper

Founder

(Stern '23)

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A neurocognitive analytics and training platform for competitive gamers.

Wayne Mackey, PhD

Co-Founder

(GSAS '16)

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Provides a cost effective chemical path to manufacture sustainable nylon.

Daniela Blanco, PhD

Co-Founder

(Tandon '21)

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Theatre Advocacy Project solves the problem of unsafe, inequitable, and costly working conditions for theatre artists and administrators by providing external HR services and offering personal consultants for accountability to regional theatre managers.

Caylin Waller

Co-founder

(Steinhardt '22)

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Voltela offers ubiquitous, ultra-reliable, and low-latency connectivity, allowing drone service providers to reliably control their long-range delivery drones and benefit from fewer mission abortions and reduced costs compared to satellite links.

Kim Mahler

Co-founder

(Tandon '20)

Dathic creates an AI-based platform for CPG that understands the US Hispanic consumers, recommends the best locations to grow and connect communities with the products they love.

Founder(s)

Laura Rocha (Wagner '20) |
Jose Daniel Ramirez |
Luis Felipe Giraldo
Santiago Alvarez
Diana Prieto
Juan David Ramirez

Website

dathic.com

Social

Participated in

Founder(s)

Aleksandra Medina (Abu Dhabi '21) |
Katrin Kaurov (Abu Dhabi '19) |

Website

getfrich.com

Social

Participated in

Founder(s)

Sebastian Jimenez (CAS '18) |

Website

rillavoice.com

Social

Participated in

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What You Can Expect

Get ready for a nine-week accelerator to help you set and meet your customer acquisition, product development, and team goals, and to launch your venture full-time. Each week the teams push to achieve key business milestones, to validate product-market fit, acquire customers, and solidify their business model. Summer Launchpad is deeply connected to New York City and the broader US entrepreneurial ecosystem (including from Boston and Silicon Valley), tapping mentors, coaches and potential investors who help teams accelerate from vision to scale. Here’s a preview of what’s in store:

Investor Mentorship: Boardroom-style feedback from a personalized advisory council of VCs. See below for a list of some of the past program mentors.
Entrepreneur Mentorship: 1:1 Mentorship with dedicated experienced entrepreneurs and subject matter experts, and weekly hands on guidance from the coaches at the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute.
Guest Founder Talks: Talks from preeminent founders and Venture Capitalists.
Workshops: Led by experts across the NYU and NYC startup communities, workshops teach relevant skills in finance and capital raising, customer acquisition, product development, business operations, and other topics selected to help you succeed in your venture.
Customer Development: Get closer to product-market fit through customer validation by “Getting out of the Building” and engaging directly to prospective users, customers, and partners.
Accelerator and Investor Office Hours: Office hours with numerous later-stage accelerators, angel, and seed-stage investors throughout the program.
Community: You’ll work alongside, learn from, and contribute to a community of NYU startup founders and fellow SLP participants.
Finale Demo Day: At the end of the program, ventures will pitch to an audience of mentors and investors. In addition, founders will have the opportunity to demo at the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival in October ’26, in front of 500 of your fellow classmates.

Who the Summer Launchpad is For - Your Team

Open to teams of NYU entrepreneurs from any school or college:

Attending an Info Session: We want to know you understand what you’re signing up for. Therefore, attendance at a Startup Accelerator Program info session is mandatory.
Progress via Coaching: Teams must have demonstrated they’re making continued progress on their venture AND demonstrate they clearly benefit from coaching and are receptive to feedback.
Completed a Startup Sprint, (you may apply for the Summer Startup Sprint and Summer Launchpad simultaneously) .
2+ Team Members: At least two team members must be able to participate in the program full time. Only one team member needs to be a founder.
NYU affiliation: Only one founder has to be an NYU student/staff member or recent alumni (having graduated in Spring 2025 or later).
Right Skillsets: Preference will be given to well-rounded, multi-disciplinary teams whose skills/experiences match the venture they’re creating and who are deeply passionate about the problem they’re solving for their customers.
Commitment: Teams of two or more must be committed to their startup full time (at least 40 hours per week) and able to participate in ALL program activities for the nine weeks (absences need to be disclosed in the application). Teams must be committed to launching their venture after the program (if not before).
Buy-In: Understand the requirements of the program and have an openness to customer development and the work required by the program.
Community-Minded: Demonstrated willingness to help other startup teams and interest in being part of a community.

Who the Summer Launchpad is For - Your Venture

Ventures should have the potential to be highly scalable and differentiated, including scalable tech, non-profit and social ventures. Beyond that we look for ventures with:

A validated initial target customer segment (validated via customer discovery/experiments).
Solving a Meaningful problem: The problem you’re solving with your venture has the potential to bring substantive, scalable, and tangible value to customers and other beneficiaries, with potential to scale value/impact to a large market/beneficiary sector in the future.
Strong hypotheses for your business model.
Proof of Concept/Prototype: We’ll look at your proof of concept and your plans for how you’ll take your solution to the next level to validate it with customers during SLP (getting you to product-market fit). Prototypes can take many forms depending on your venture – a website, Figma prototype, sketch, MVP, demonstration project, or white paper – depending on the nature of your business.
Strong awareness of the competition and evidence that your venture is differentiated.
For all above, we’ll look for real progress and traction. A pitch deck is much less helpful then actual customer testimonials and results from solution tests.

Benefits

Each team will receive funding and perks to put toward their venture, including:

Funding: $15,000 in zero-equity, non-dilutive grant funding toward your venture.
Cloud Computing: $25,000 in Google Cloud credits for participation in the program.
Coaching and Mentorship: Office hours with VCs, Angel Investors, and expert mentors.
Legal Services: Pro-bono legal guidance from Brown Rudnick to help you incorporate the right way to kickstart your company.
Accounting Services: Pro-bono accounting services.
Access to Future Programs: Select teams will be invited to participate in the Ignite Fellowship, apply to the Female Founders Fellowship and Grant programs, as well as the Max Stenbeck Venture Equity Program, and will have opportunities to meet with later-stage accelerators and incubators to help grow their ventures after completion of Summer Launchpad. Select founders will also be invited to incubate their companies at NYU, as Founders in Residence at the Leslie eLab.