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Friday, June 13, 2025
The Birth of the University as Innovation Incubator: Carnegie Mellon Received One of the First University Incubators
Back in the 70's, Carnegie Mellon had all the components that experts believed were necessary for innovation: strong engineering, a world-class business school, novel approaches to urban planning with a focus on community needs and a tradition of industrial design and the practical arts. CMU leaders claimed that the school was smaller, younger, more interdisciplinary and more agile than MIT.
The main reason that CMU received an NSF Innovation Center, however, was its director, Dwight Baumann. Baumann exemplified a new kind of educator-entrepreneur.
Director of Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Entrepreneurial Development, Baumann believed that a modern university should provide entrepreneurial education. Baumann’s goal was to establish entrepreneurship education as a core function of a modern technological university.
Friday, June 13, 2025
Gecko Robotics Reaches Unicorn Status Doubling Valuation to Over $1B
Gecko Robotics announced this week that it has raised an additional $125M in Series D funding, raising its valuation to $1.25B, which means the Pittsburgh-based company has reached unicorn status. Co-founded by CMU alumni Jake Loosararian and CPO Troy Demmer, Gecko uses robots and AI to help organizations including the U.S. military inspect and monitor critical infrastructure.
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Tepper School of Business Alumni Receive 2025 Tepper Alumni Awards
The Tepper School Alumni Awards recognize excellence in the alumni community for outstanding career accomplishments or achievements and for impressive service to the school and alumni community. At a special ceremony held on May 3, three Tepper School alumni—two founders and an accomplished product marketing lead, received alumni awards.
Lifetime Achievement Award
- John Levinson, Founder and President, Westway Capital (McGinnis Venture Competition judge, funder of the Moonshot Boardroom, mentor and investor for the CMU Swartz Center
Recent Masters Alumni Award
- Anna Fuller, Founder of Halo (VentureBridge company)
- Stephen Feyer, Senior Product Marketing Manager - Competitive Intelligence, WalkMe - (James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow and mentor, CMU Swartz Center)
Congratulations to all of the awardees!
Friday, June 6, 2025
Announcing the Five Startups to Receive $100K From the Tartan Entrepreneurs Fund
We're excited to announce the five companies that will be a part of the 2025 inaugural cohort of the Tartan Entrepreneurs Fund. The Tartan Entrepreneurs Fund is focused on empowering Pittsburgh based CMU alumni startups with unicorn potential with funding of $100K over two years, as well as mentorship and guidance. The five companies that will be a part of the cohort are:
HeadStrait Labs - Alyssa Theroux and Mary Squire
Delivering a head and neck immobilization device that monitors patient motion in real time and generates post-event analysis to reduce secondary injuries during emergency transportation.
Journey Robotics - Keith Gunnett, Re g Allen, David Lee, and Kyle Solomon
Journey Robotics helps airports and airlines easily modernize their baggage handling operations using advanced technologies without having to change existing processes or upgrade the entire infrastructure. Journey Robotics' drop-in automated Baggage Handler platform enables continuous, consistent and fast baggage handling, resulting in reduced wait times, fewer delays and an improved passenger experience.
Shelfmark - Pat O'Donell and Craig Markovitz
Shelfmark is the AI visual inspection automation platform that saves manufacturers on waste and labor and improves quality and consistency in line-based production.
Singularity Polymers - Hunaid Nulwala, Ph.D., Prof. Carlos Diaz-Acosta, and William (Bill) Belias. Singularity Polymers was founded to transform the packaging industry through the development of single-material polymeric films. By eliminating multilayer complexity, the company enables simpler, more sustainable, and cost-effective packaging solutions and a spin-off from RoCo.
Stealth - The final company is still in stealth, however we are excited to announce them at a later date.
Friday, June 6, 2025
CMU's VentureBridge Demo Day Makes a Hit in the Big Apple!
Several investors, along with tons of Carnegie Mellon University alumni packed the Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman Law office in New York on Monday, June 2 for another successful VentureBridge Demo Day, which was a part of New York TechWeek. The new VentureBridge cohort, another inspiring group of CMU alumni founders, pitched in front of over 100 investors and founders that included hardware and software demos and pitches from companies that are changing gaming, AI training, drug delivery, nutrition, fitness training and more.
Led by Venture Bridge Sr. Director Namrata Banerjee and assisted by Program Manager Steven Guo, the Demo Day was followed by a networking reception featuring the new cohort and select VentureBridge alumni in the portfolio.
Carnegie Mellon University’s VentureBridge (VB) program is a pre-seed fund and an accelerator program, part of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, focused on supporting Carnegie Mellon founders working on their startups full-time. Since 2018, the VB program has supported dozens of startups collectively valued at over half a billion dollars.
The CMU Swartz Center would like to thank Matt Kirmayer of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman for being an amazing champion of CMU founders—welcoming our alumni to their New York office and continually supporting the CMU founder community.
Thursday, June 5, 2025
Beyond Reach Labs Awarded $50K at Keystone Space Collaborative Innovation Challenge
The Keystone Space Collaborative and early-stage investor Innovation Works has awarded five local aerospace startups with $200K in funding as part of an innovation challenge. Beyond Reach Labs, founded by CMU Mechanical Engineering Ph.D Mitchell Fogelson, received $50K. The company is developing a pop-up shelter system for space and military uses.
Fogelson also won second place and $20K at this year's McGinnis Venture Competition.
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
CMU VentureBridge Film Production Startup Erosion Accepting Investments
Erosion (VentureBridge 2023), an independent film production company dedicated to creating conservation and climate comedy film and TV, is now accepting investments for its first feature film "Hiking Buddies" on the WeFunder securities platform. Horror films are traditionally the most profitable film genre and Erosion co-founders Megan Morrison and Tracy Held are leveraging their 20+ years in the entertainment industry, as well as their expertise of conservation and comedy storytelling to engage untapped film audiences.
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Rising AI & Art Startup SeeMuseums is Hiring!
SeeMuseums, a CMU Swartz Center startup co-founded by Tepper School of Business alumna Yifan Wang, is an AI + Art company developing the world’s first agentive museum tour guide—a mobile app that enhances museum visits with personalized, contextual insights. The company's mission is to make art appreciation accessible to everyone.
SeeMuseums officially launched on the App Store and Product Hunt on May 10th and within just two days, soared to the #1 Product of the Day, as well as earning the #1 Product of the Week in both the Education and User Experience categories. At SeeMuseums, every artwork tells a story—and that story should speak to all, not just experts.
The founders are currently hiring for roles in Full Stack Development, UI/UX Design, Marketing. If you are interested in their mission, learn more and apply here. If you or anyone else in the museum industry is interested in the mission at SeeMuseums, reach out to admin@seemuseums.art.
Friday, May 30, 2025
OctaPulse Founder Paul Grech Accepted Into Hult Prize Digital Incubator
When Tepper School of Business alumnus Paul Grech and his team won in the graduate track of this year's inaugural Social Enterprise Competition, a newly added track of the McGinnis Venture Competition led by CMU Swartz Center EIR Leah Lizarondo, it only went up from there. The co-founder of OctaPulse, a company aiming to revolutionize aquaculture using AI-powered fish inspection systems that reduce waste, improve yields, and protect ocean ecosystems has gone on to receive the Tepper School of Business Entrepreneur of the Year Award and has now been accepted into the Hult Prize Digital Incubator. Paul and his team, which includes Rohan Singh and Andres Castrillon, are working to build the future of sustainable seafood.
Among his many other accomplishments, Paul has also been an integral member of the 99 Tartans organization as an MBA partner, a Robotics Institute Pathways Fellow and Consortium Fellow.
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute taps RE2 Robotics founder as New CEO
The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute has named a new CEO, the former founder and CEO of RE2 Robotics. Jorgen Pedersen started RE2 in 2001, growing it to a team of over 100 employees before the company was acquired by Sarcos Technology in 2022 for $100M. On June 17, Jorgen will begin leading the Department of Defense's primary Manufacturing Innovation Institutes, working to foster relationships and collaborations between robotics and manufacturing companies, government agencies and universities.
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
CMU Spinout Anactisis Awarded $20K at the Spring 2025 EPIC Pitch Competition
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) awarded more than $100K in cash prizes at the Spring 2025 EPIC Pitch Competition, where startups presented their groundbreaking energy technologies.
Second place at $20K went to Anactisis, a company focused on enhancing U.S. energy security by developing polymer-based materials to recover critical minerals from industrial waste streams.
Friday, May 23, 2025
The VentureBridge '25 Cohort Kicks Off in San Francisco and Headed to New York Demo Day
Carnegie Mellon University’s VentureBridge (VB) Program is excited to announce investments into 14 startups! These CMU-alumni-founders, representing the School of Computer Science, College of Engineering and the Tepper School of Business, are building across AI Infrastructure, intelligent agents, robotics, healthtech, cleantech and industrial automation—creating high impact and venture-scale solutions for the largest complex challenges.
The program kicked off last week in the San Francisco Bay Area with 2.5 days of intensive programming spanning multiple fireside chats with venture capital firms, VB alumni-founded startups, large mixers and networking events in San Francisco and Palo Alto, CA.
Special Thank You's:
Thank you to the CMU Swartz Center's incredible partners for their immense support of CMU founders and a special thank you to Smith Point Capital, Rackhouse Venture Capital, Fusion Fund, Silicon Valley Bank, AI Camp, Moon Creative Labs, CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship, 99 Tartans and the CMU Alumni Association Bay Area network.
Thanks also to CMU VB founders Abhishek Dubey - Bolster (VB ‘18), Vishakha Gupta - ApertureData (VB ‘20), Chelsie Hall - ViralMoment (VB ‘21), Miranda Nover, Zach Sussman - Mach9 Robotics (VB ‘21), Raj Tilwa - Focal (VB ‘22), Saurabh Misra - Codeflash (VB ‘23), Leo Ma and Calvin Zhou - RoboForce (VB ‘24), Bob Dimmico - Reveal AI (VB ‘24), and Vai Vishwanathan - Voxel.
Join us for CMU VB Demo Day in New York City on Monday, June 2 during NY Tech Week to meet the next generation of CMU founders and get a first look at what they're building!
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Artian AI Co-Founder and CEO Prashant Reddy Announces $8M Fund Raise
CMU alumnus Prashant Reddy has announced that his company, Artian AI, has raised $8M in funding to accelerate the company's ambitious goal of reliable autonomous multi-agent AI systems for business-critical enterprise processes—at scale. The round was led by Work-Bench, with participation from Foxe Capital/Anthemis and a phenomenal group of early investors and domain experts.
Thursday, May 22, 2025
2025 Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholar Saisri Akondi Harnessed CMU's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem to Revolutionize Care for Diabetics
After Carnegie Mellon University alumna Saisri Akondi earned her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology in India, Dave Mawhinney, founding executive director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, convinced her to pursue her entrepreneurial ambitions at
Carnegie Mellon University.
While at CMU, Akondi found the perfect ecosystem in which to build her medical device startup,
D.Sole, which develops tools that monitor foot biomechanics and provide early warnings to prevent ulcers and infections.
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Partner, Head of TxO at Andreessen Horowitz Kofi Ampadu Named to 2025 Power100 Presented by Blueprint Capital Advisors, LLC
Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business alumnus Kofi Ampadu has recently been recognized by the 2025 Power100 Presented By Blueprint Capital Advisors LLC. "This recognition reflects the impactful work I have the privilege of doing every day alongside the a16z Talent x Opportunity team to make entrepreneurship more accessible", Ampadu shared in a recent LinkedIn post.
Kofi is also the Founder and General Partner at SKU'd Ventures and recently began hosting a new podcast, the TxO Startup Hotline Series, targeted to founders seeking answers to a wide range of questions related to startups.
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Codeflash Founder Saurabh Misra Shares Why AI-Powered Code Optimization Is Now Essential
Carnegie Mellon University ECE '19 alumnus Saurabh Misra, founder of Codeflash, the platform working to bring AI optimization to workflows, recently shared how his company is championing the recent shift of AI not only assisting with coding, but how it's also pioneering novel, efficient solutions.
Codeflash offers a practical, accessible solution for developers with its AI-powered tool that optimizes Python codebases, ensuring high performance and efficiency.
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Carnegie Mellon, Mid-Atlantic Hub Host First NSF I-Corps Cohort for AI, Robotics
The CMU Swartz Center's Project Olympus and the NSF Innovation Corps Hub Mid-Atlantic Region recently hosted entrepreneurs and researchers in AI and Robotics to help faculty, students and alumni transform their research into the next generation of companies.
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Metagigs Co-Founder and CEO Alex Garcia Returns to the Swartz Center While Seeking Early-Stage Funding
Tepper School of Business alumnus and Innovation Scholar Alex Garcia returned to the CMU Swartz Center this week to work with his Pittsburgh team as they seek early-stage funding for his company Metagigs, a platform that allows video game players to find and hire experts through an official marketplace natively inside the game.
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
The CMU Swartz Center's Project Olympus Awards Five Spark Grants
The Project Olympus Spark Grant Fund helps Carnegie Mellon University founders kick-start their startup ideas. This Spring, five grants of up to $3K each were awarded to the following startups: Basilisk Robotics, PianoCam, Wok On, Perflection AI and SpoilSafe.
Spark Grants are funded by charitable gifts from alumni and other community donors. The next round of Spark Grant funding will take place in the Fall of 2025.
Friday, May 16, 2025
James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellows and Innovation Scholars Participate in CMU's 2025 Commencement
During Carnegie Mellon University's 2025 Commencement Weekend, which took place May 9-11, the CMU Swartz Center celebrated several James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellows and Innovation Scholars who participated in the graduation ceremony, even at CMU Qatar's campus.
Each of these students have been a significant part of the Swartz Center family as they embarked on their entrepreneurial careers, won startup competitions, participated in entrepreneurship club activities, attended the annual Entrepreneurship Trek to Silicon Valley, and participated in many other programs to help them on their startup journeys. Here is a snapshot of some of the graduates.
Above photos (in order from left):
Ruben Antonio Quesada (Swartz Fellow), Tepper School of Business, Co-founder and CEO, Sabana
Sapna Rohra (Swartz Fellow), Master's of Integrated Innovation for Products and Services (MIIPS)
Christina Yang (Swartz Fellow), Master of Design, Design for Interactions
Mukhammadjon Gafurov (Innovation Scholar), CMU Qatar (Business Administration, Finance)
Below photos (in order from left):
Emily Torrealba (Swartz Fellow) Tepper School of Business ('25 STEM)
Advika Jayanti (Innovation Scholar), School of Computer Science
Qinyuan (Olivia) Wu (Swartz Fellow), Information Networking Institute (INI), recipient of this year's INI Leadership AwardBelow photos (in order from left):
Kaitlyn Chow (Innovation Scholar), Tepper School of Business, founder of BAM!
Congratulations Swartz Fellows and Innovation Scholars!
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Ivy+ CMU Swartz in the City Series Event Highlights Two CMU Alumni Swartz Center Founders
Two CMU Tepper School of Business alumni founders, also current and past winners of the Swartz Center's McGinnis Venture Competition, were featured speakers at the 'Swartz in the City' series event held at Pittsburgh's Allegheny HYP Club on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. Kaitlyn Chow, founder of BAM! and Chibuike Dumebi-Kachikwu, CEO and founder of Thursday Thrift, shared their exciting journeys with their startups and the latest technology they are using with the Penn and other Ivy+ alumni who were in attendance.
BAM! is the home of self-heating containers that provide hot meals on the go, and Thursday Thrift is providing customers with the first digital thrifting experience powered by AI.
The event series is led by Dave Mawhinney, Founding Executive Director at the CMU Swartz Center and Donald Bonk, CMU alumnus and President of the Penn Club of Western PA.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
UCLA Receives ADEA Grant to Use Pearl’s AI Platform to Improve Radiologic Education and Clinical Performance for High-Quality, Consistent Patient Care
Pearl, the global leader in dental AI solutions, today announced that the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Dentistry has been awarded a grant from the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) to integrate Pearl Calibrate, the first AI-powered clinical calibration tool, into its educational and research programs. The grant-powered collaboration will enable faculty, residents, and students to incorporate advanced AI technology into their curriculum and in preparation for clinical work. Insights garnered from the implementation are expected later this year.
Friday, May 9, 2025
Swartz Center Founding Executive Director Dave Mawhinney Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the PVCA
CMU Swartz Center Founding Executive Director Dave Mawhinney was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association (PVCA) last Thursday, May 8, 2025. Several friends, colleagues and Dave's family were in attendance, including his wife Kristan and their three sons Sean, Michael and Ben.
After special remarks were given by long time friend and colleague Sean Ammirati, Dave received a special tribute from each of his sons as they took the stage together to share early family memories, a bit of humor and reflections on his unwavering commitment and passion for the Entrepreneurship ecosystem both in Pittsburgh and at Carnegie Mellon University. Dave's tireless and dedicated mentorship to countless students and alumni over the years was also highlighted and celebrated among the many friends who attended in his honor, including CMU Swartz Center staff, Swartz Fellow and Innovation Scholar students and many more from CMU and the community.
Thursday, May 8, 2025
Trainwell Launches Free Tier Workout Plans
Trainwell co-founder Matt Spettel has announced that Trainwell is now offering completely free trainer-curated workout plans for its users, with the accountability of a team of fellow users to back you up. With trainwell teams, users can build a team consisting of family and friends that can work together to hit consistency and desired goals.
Thursday, May 8, 2025
Tepper School of Business MBA Ruben Antonio Quesada Named to Poets & Quants Best and Brightest Class of 2025
Ruben Antonio Quesada, Tepper MBA and 2023-25 James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow, has had an incredible journey from architect to startup founder. As CEO and Co-Founder of Sabana, an AI-driven data management platform designed to simplify how architects and engineers manage, document and collaborate on product selections and construction specifications, Ruben embodies the passion, grit and drive that propels entrepreneurs forward and is a key leader in the Tepper School's entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Aurora Innovation Deploys First Driverless Semi-truck on Texas Roads
Strip District-headquartered autonomous vehicle company Aurora Innovation Inc. announced that it has successfully deployed a completely driverless semi-truck in Texas, making it the first company to ever operate a self-driving heavy duty truck on public roads.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Lovelace AI Secures Seed Funding
Lovelace AI, the stealth AI startup founded by Andrew Moore, former dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and former Google Cloud AI General Manager, announced it has closed a seed round backed by RRE Ventures. Financial terms of the funding round were not disclosed.
"Lovelace AI is not just building another AI company, it's solving one of the most fundamental bottlenecks in modern computing, the ability to synthesize data across environments at operational speed," RRE COO Will Porteous said in a prepared statement.
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Near Earth Autonomy's Barry Rabkin Named to CMU's 2025 Tartans on the Rise
Tepper School of Business alumnus Barry Rabkin (MBA '14), Director of Marketing at Near Earth Autonomy, is a recipient of CMU's 2025 class of Tartans on the Rise. Rabkin is shaping the future of aviation through “flight beyond sight.” His strategic leadership is driving Near Earth’s revolutionary autonomous aircraft technology, forming key partnerships with the U.S. Department of Defense and leading aircraft manufacturers.
Friday, May 2, 2025
The CMU Swartz Center Hosts the AI Venture Studio AI//VS 2025 Demo Day
Hundreds attended the highly successful AI Venture Studio (AI//VS) 2025 Demo Day event held at the Tepper School of Business and CMU Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. The event kicked off with the Open Coffee: AI Edition event and 1:1 investor meetings, followed by the live Demo Day and ending with faculty and alumni Demos/Research Breakthroughs.
Created in 2024 by Adam Paulisick, CEO of SkillBuilder.io, Professor of Entrepreneurship at CMU's Tepper School of Business and Sean Ammirati, Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship at CMU's Tepper School of Business and co-founder and former Director of the CMU Corporate Startup Lab, AI//VS has adopted proven methods with a modern view to not only build AI solutions or be assisted by AI but to "recruit" AI to teams early and often to act as a founding member.
The AI//VS event gave twenty four companies an opportunity to pitch and network with 25+ investors after the Open Coffee: AI Edition event, where participants were able to meet leading founders, researchers and teams building with AI, and over thirty investors from across the country in town for CMU AI Venture Studio Investor Day. Investors held drop in meetings for any founders ready to raise.
See the 2025 AI//VS companies here.
Thursday, May 1, 2025
Gather AI Among CB Insights Most Promising Artificial Intelligence Startups of 2025
CB Insights has launched the 9th annual AI 100—a ranking of the world's top emerging AI companies. From observability to infrastructure security to vertical AI agents, this year's winners are shaping the future of intelligent systems across industries. Gather AI, co-founded by CMU alumni Sankalp Arora, Daniel Maturana and Geetesh Dubey, made the list.
Thursday, May 1, 2025
Carnegie Mellon Founded Companies Make Pittsburgh Startups to Watch in 2025 List
Three Carnegie Mellon University startups, SkildAI, UltronAI and Netail, have been included in Pittsburgh's Startups to Watch in 2025 list.
SkildAI, headquartered in Pittsburgh's East Liberty neighborhood and backed by a significant amount of venture capital, is working to build artificial general intelligence for robots. SkildAI was founded in 2023 by CMU professors Deepak Pathak and Abhinav Gupta. UltronAI, founded in 2022 by Carnegie Mellon University Professor Marios Savvides, is developing computer vision software for retailers. Its software is capable of recognizing and matching items from images, giving retailers a wide variety of possible uses, including self checkout monitoring and inventory management. Netail, Inc., first incubated as part of renowned computer scientist Andrew Ng’s LandingAI in 2021 and launched as its own company in 2022 by CEO Mark Chrystal and CTO Barney Govan, provides retailers with an artificial intelligence-powered analytics tool called Profitmind that is capable of identifying and quantifying opportunities to adjust pricing and inventory to meet consumer demand.
The annual Startups to Watch event is on Wednesday, May 7 at Workscape on the South Side.
Thank you to our Swartz Center Patrons
