The Innovation Fund
The Innovation Fund drives momentum in the Harvard startup ecosystem by supporting passionate and driven Harvard-affiliated founders. Since its inception in 2020, Innovation Fund has received 300+ applicants and allocated $60k+ in the form of equity-free grants, Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits, and incubation programs with external partners. HUCP is honored to organize the Innovation Fund in collaboration with Harvard Undergraduate Consulting for Business and the Environment (CBE) Ventures.
HUCP is currently accepting proposals from organizations that are interested in supporting the Innovation Fund. HUCP offers several sponsorship tiers, with benefits including an invitation to participate in the judging process for Innovation Fund, promotion on HUCP’s Innovation Fund marketing materials, and access to an exclusive resume book from eager Harvard students. HUCP also welcomes non-monetary contributions. Inquiries regarding sponsorship opportunities may be directed to contact@harvardcap.org.
HUCP invites interested Harvard-affiliated founders (including current and former students of any Harvard school, as well as current and former faculty) to review the Fall 2025 competition timeline and complete our early interest form below.
Tentative Fall 2025 Timeline
October 15: Written application opens
The Innovation Fund written application will require the emails and resumes of the founding team members, a detailed description of the startup and its funding needs, and a one-minute mission statement video. A pitch deck is recommended but not required.
November 1, 11:59 PM ET: Written application closes
November 6-7: Round 1 Interviews
The majority of applicants will be invited to engage in a Round 1 interview at Harvard College’s campus. Interviews will be conducted by members of HUCP and HUCBE. Zoom accommodations are available as necessary.
November 11-12: Round 2 Interviews
A select group of finalists will be invited to engage in a Round 2 interview with members of HUCP and HUCBE over Zoom. These finalists may also be invited to share their startup ideas with the Harvard VC ecosystem in a separate event.
November 15: Winners Announced!
Judging Criteria
We assess startups in the domains of Market Opportunity, Team Background, Product/Action Plan, Financial Viability, and Competition Fit, each with 20% weight on the numerical score.
Additional Eligibility Notes: Startups may be for-profit or non-profit. The founding team must be Harvard affiliated, which HUCP defines as any current or former student of the Harvard schools, or any current and former faculty of Harvard University.
Fall 2025 Early Interest Form (Startups)
Innovation Fund Partners
Past Innovation Fund Winners
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PODEROSAS: A nonprofit organization providing Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) to children and youth living in the most vulnerable communities across Colombia.
Sequestor: The copilot and data engine for due diligence in the voluntary carbon market. We provide the data and tools that funds and enterprises need to perform due diligence on carbon projects.
AidJourney: A Social Healthcare Not-For-Profit organization designed to help match patients' families with financial resources to cover the in-direct cost of cancer treatment.
Matilda: A tool that enables professors to build AI Tutors and integrate AI safely into the classroom.
Sprxng: A menstrual health company dedicated to creating innovative, science-backed products that address common challenges in menstrual care.
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Mineral Forecast: Helps geologists at mining and exploration companies decide where to explore, where to drill, and how to optimize existing mining sites.
Oban Market: Working to make fair credit accessible to individuals and Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in Nigeria.
AllStreet: A digital wealth platform that constructs thematic portfolios of top-performing private funds for the qualified retail investor.
BlockCarbon: A remote sensing and AI technology-driven marketplace for voluntary carbon credits, with a mission to connect Asia's carbon-zero efforts with the rest of the world.
Quantiscope: Integrating AI/ML imaging analysis seamlessly into therapeutic pipelines, streamlining hit identification, enhancing optimization, extending patents.
Ntu-Konected: Enabling landlords to be able to sell renewable, cleaner, and cheaper power (e.g. solar or lithium-ion battery) directly from their buildings to their tenants.
Simply: A future-of-work start-up that connects companies to vetted and trained remote team members in emerging markets.
Lockbox: Streamlines managing shared funds.
MiKashBoks: Helps you manage your finances by notifying you when your next contribution or repayment is due.
Zeph: Assesses lung health and creates highly personalized and precise training exercises that strengthen and improve lung fitness for people responding to a respiratory dysfunction or hoping to optimize their breathing behavior.
Basys.ai: A SaaS platform for both hospitals and payers. We use proprietary AI technology (patent pending) to track, predict, and intervene to improve health outcomes for patients with cardio-metabolic conditions.
Tetrix: A SaaS platform that small-medium enterprises can leverage to manage and improve their upstream/downstream supply chains.
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Sylphi: An early-stage healthtech company developing software and hardware products to improve medication adherence.
Candelytics: A LIDAR & 3D analytics startup founded by a team of engineers, military veterans, and graduate students from Harvard & MIT.
Tekal: Applying artificial intelligence and diverse data sources to transform the transportation infrastructure industry.
Hive Health: Provides employees and their loved ones with easy, affordable, and quality health insurance through a user-centric, data-science powered technology platform.
ShoulderTap: Skills and expertise indexing for teams, to help businesses know what they know.
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Alloy Financial: Leading cloud-based wealth experience platform making it easy for everyone to compare financial products and services, all while building their own personalized fintech app.
Almond Finance: Makes financial inclusion possible for entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
Barakat Bundle: Creates lifesaving bundles of health and education to support mothers and newborns in need for the first year of their child's life.
Bodhi Parts: Asian American streetwear brand inspired by culturally Buddhist iconography.
Congregate: An online events platform for social, business, and classroom gatherings. Congregate brings in-person event experiences online through creating virtual spaces which users fluidly move between.
DiDact: A virtual platform, website and app, that harnesses natural language processing and machine learning to help users get the most out of their meetings via “smart” note-taking.
Finary: An investing discussion site where millennials can interact with other investors over the latest market events, join forums on a wide range of investing topics, and make trades.
Oak: A company that is devoted to delivering Black people the best Black-owned products for their specific hair.
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Bonzai: On demand out of home advertising with a simple goal: to make it as easy to get an ad in Times Square as it is online.
My Dental Key: An online educational platform that transforms clinical dental learning through original video demonstrations, innovative illustrations, and step-by-step procedural guidelines to advance the quality of oral health care worldwide.
ShelfLife: A Boston-based company building a software-enabled marketplace for specialty food and beverage manufacturers.
HiHome: Illuminating the path to homeownership by untangling the homebuying process. We are developing the "TurboTax" of homebuying.
Gryps: An AI powered document data extraction and analysis platform for building and infrastructure owners and operators.
Perigree: Extends the life of legacy devices connected to critical infrastructure. It is a security tool used by Chief Information Security Officers to increase visibility and reliability across their network operations.
Troav: A company that provides its users with a library of things. One membership can give you access to the latest, coolest technology, and the best part? There is no charge per checkout.