This program is Part 3 in our
Startup Accelerator ProgramTuesday, June 11 - Thursday, Aug. 8
NYU Summer Launchpad is a 9-week accelerator for scalable startups. Receive one-on-one coaching, customer development training, legal and accounting services, and $10,000 in non-dilutive funding, all in a dynamic and community-minded atmosphere.
Between 8-10 teams get selected to participate.
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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:
Open to teams of NYU entrepreneurs from any school or college, with a proof of concept/prototype and who has validated problem-solution fit. Highly scalable and differentiated ventures addressing ANY sector from ANY NYU school are welcome to apply, including scalable non-profit ventures. Other requirements and preferences for participating teams include:
Beyond this, ventures who apply to the program must meet the below requirements:
First things first, make sure you’re committed to your startup full time (at least 40 hours per week) and available to participate in ALL program activities for the nine weeks. And remember, at least one co-founder must be an NYU student, faculty, staff, researcher, or postdoc!
Additional selection criteria includes:
Each team will receive funding and perks to put toward their venture, including:
No. Our preference is the founding team is composed of graduating students (those graduating in Fall ’23 or Spring ’24), but others are welcome to apply if at least one member is a current student, recently graduated within the past year (Spring ’22), or is a current faculty, researcher, postdoc or staff member. Faculty, researcher and postdocs working on hard tech/life science ventures may instead be interested in participating in the sister program – the NYU Technology Venture Program – which is designed just for faculty-led ventures commercializing technology developed at NYU.
The Summer ’24 program will be held in person in New York City, and if participants will be required to be located in NYC during the bulk of the program (some weeks during the program may be held virtually, while others will be held in person).
Summer Launchpad is intended for all types of startups which have high growth potential and are highly differentiated from competitors. Whether focused on social innovation, software, medical devices, physical products, hardware, or other areas, all are welcome to apply. Both for profits and non-profits are welcome to apply as well (and several non-profits and B-Corps have participated in the program in the past).
See above in “Who It’s For” and “Selection Criteria” for more details.
Summer Launchpad is highly selective, accepting only ~10% of applicants each year. Ventures which are less developed (you do not have demonstrated problem-solution fit, or a proof of concept/prototype) are encouraged to consider applying to a Startup Bootcamp or Startup Sprint instead.
June 12th-August 10th. Prior to the program teams will also participate in an orientation at the end of April and will come in for Venture Coaching to establish individual team-based milestones for the program. Teams will also receive post-program mentorship and prep in advance of the NYU Demo Day in October.
All core co-founders members must be committed to their startup full time (during and after program), and thus to pursuing their startup via NYU Summer Launchpad full-time. However teams may include some non-core founding members or advisors who have outside obligations such as faculty appointments or internships, but they are only eligible to participate in some Summer Launchpad program activities. Have questions about this? Email us at entrepreneur@nyu.edu prior to submitting your application.
We will be hosting team hunts each semester (visit the calendar section of this website to sign up!).
While you may submit as many applications as you like, if your team is selected for the program, we expect teams to be fully committed to the venture they are selected to participate with (both during and after the program).
The application for the 2024 Summer Launchpad will be available in early Spring ’24.
Teams will be notified within a week and a half of the application closing date if they’ve been selected to interview for the program. If you’re invited to interview, you’ll receive final notice of your acceptance around the middle of April.
Yes – in the past many participants in the program had taken dilutive funding prior to participating.
Applications will be reviewed by and interviews will be conducted by senior members of the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute team and NYU Innovation Venture Fund. Applications will not be shared with any external parties for any reason.
Typically we do not give specific feedback on applications. However we’d be happy to meet with your team to give more general feedback and guidance about your startup through our mentorship/coaching program (open to those currently affiliated with NYU only). You can book a coaching appointment here: https://entrepreneur.nyu.edu/resource/startup-coaching/
Yes! You can view and make a copy of the application questions from Summer Launchpad ’22 linked here. We HIGHLY recommend you make a copy of this document and fill out the application questions here before submitting through the Qualtrics form.
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