News
Join Our Weekly Bulletin
Stay up to date on the latest entrepreneurship news, programs and opportunities.
Friday, April 10, 2026
CMU's Revora Health and SpoilSafe Named 2026 Imagine Cup World Finalists
Three startups have advanced to the 2026 Microsoft Imaging Cup World Finalists, two of which are founded by CMU students. Revora Health, founded by Tepper School of Business MBA Surya Kukkapalli and SpoilSafe, founded by CMU students Vivaan Sawant, Advika Vuppala, Rohan Ganesh and Troy McBride have advanced to the finals.
SpoilSafe is addressing a critical gap in the cold chain, where limited visibility into food freshness leads to waste, rejected inventory, and lost revenue. Revora Health is addressing a critical gap in how patients access and experience recovery, where long wait times and limited support often leave individuals navigating rehabilitation on their own.
Thursday, April 9, 2026
Pittsburgh's Meter Feeder and Mapless AI Test Robotaxi Parking Payment System in Bid to Prevent Lost City Revenue
Meter Feeder and Mapless AI tested a machine-to-machine system that lets autonomous vehicles pay for parking on their own, just in time for Waymo’s planned local launch.“Cities have spent decades building analog parking infrastructure for humans,” Jim Gibbs, CEO of Meter Feeder, told Technical.ly. “We are ensuring municipalities don’t lose millions in revenue just because driverless vehicles can’t feed meters.”
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
OpenFX Lands $94M Amid Cross-Border Stablecoin Push
OpenFX, a startup that focuses on foreign-exchange market making and remittances,announced it has raised $94M in a funding round led by several venture capital firms, as it looks to use stablecoins to speed up cross-border payments.The capital raise was led by investors including Accel, Atomico, Lightspeed Faction, M13, Northzone and Pantera.
Tepper School of Business alumnus and James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow Daniel McDade is Head of Operations at OpenFX.
Friday, April 3, 2026
NVIDIA Co-founder Jensen Huang Among 2026 CMU Honorary Degree Recipients
Carnegie Mellon University will award honorary degrees to four individuals at its 2026 Commencement ceremony set for Sunday, May 10 in Gesling Stadium. Jensen Huang, the electrical engineer, philanthropist and business executive who co-founded NVIDIA, will be the Commencement speaker and receive an Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology degree in recognition of his extraordinary contributions as a visionary founder and technology leader.
Thursday, April 2, 2026
BlastPoint, Inc. CEO Alison Alvarez to Receive Tepper Recent Masters Alumni Award
Tepper School of Business alumnus Alison Alvarez (MS/CS, 2007, MBA 2016), CEO and co-founder of BlastPoint, is among the recipients of the 2026 Tepper School Alumni Awards. She will receive the Tepper Recent Masters Alumni Award at a ceremony to be held on May 2, 2026 during the Reunion 2026 celebration dinner.
BlastPoint, Inc., is a B2B provider of customer intelligence and analytics solutions that companies across sectors rely on to optimize revenue growth.
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Founders Capital Spotlights Portfolio Company Beyond Reach Labs
Beyond Reach Labs, co-founded by CMU's Mitchell Fogelson, PhD, is building deployable solar arrays that expand from the size of a dining table to a football field in orbit, giving satellites 10x more usable power without increasing launch mass or volume. Their patented deployable truss architecture enables this while maintaining structural rigidity.
The company is targeting a first in-space demonstration flight for Q2 2027 and has already secured multiple LOIs from space companies totaling over $175M.
Friday, March 27, 2026
Zipline Snaps Up Another $200M to Fuel Its Drone Delivery Expansion
Zipline, a 12-year-old South San Francisco company that operates autonomous drone delivery systems for the on-demand delivery of medical supplies, food and retail items, has raised a $200M Series H round at a $7.6B post-money valuation. The deal was led by Fidelity, with Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, Tiger Global and Paradigm also participating.
Zipline co-founder Ryan Oksenhorn, participated on a panel with CMU School of Computer Science Dean Martial Herbert at February's Lab to Market event in San Francisco, CA.
The next to Lab to Market event will be held on September 17, 2026 in Pittsburgh.
Thursday, March 26, 2026
CMU Founders Make CMU's Tartans on the Rise 2026
Tartans on the Rise celebrates recent alumni who are making an impact in their organizations and in their communities, across the nation and around the world through leadership, innovation and career achievements.
Several honorees are CMU founders, including:
- David Ajoku, Founder and CEO, Aware.ai (ENG 2021)
- Tracy Held, Entrepreneur, Writer and Filmmaker (CFA 2015)
- Susana Lau, Founder and CEO, EtyaLab (ENG 2015)
- Sakshi Mishra, Co-founder, Verber Studio (ENG 2015)
- Antonina Simakova, Co-founder and EVP of Research, Myris Therapeutics (MCS 2015)
- Serano Tannason, Co-founder, Bang Jamin (SCS 2020)
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Gather AI Named to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2026
Gather AI, co-founded by Sankalp Arora, CEO, Daniel Maturana and Geetesh Dubey, was recently named to Fast Company's 'Most Innovative Companies of 2026' in the Logistics category.
Warehouses run the global economy, yet for decades operators have been making critical decisions without a clear view of what’s actually happening on the floor. We built Gather AI to change that - bringing real-time, reliable data into physical operations and turning it into action.
This recognition reflects the scale of that shift and the team and customers driving it forward.
Over the past year, we’ve doubled our operational footprint, grown bookings 250%, and raised a $40M Series B to expand globally. Still early, but the direction is clear.
Friday, March 20, 2026
The CMU Swartz Center Holds It's Biggest McGinnis Venture Competition and Social Enterprise Prize at CMU
The annual McGinnis Venture and Social Enterprise Prize Competition was held at Carnegie Mellon University and the Swartz Center on Tuesday, March 17, with startups competing for the largest prize pool ever at $375K.
The competition, which has been held since 2004 and was established by an endowment from the Swartz Center's long time friend and entrepreneur Gerald McGinnis, founder of Respironics, was the largest competition yet with over 400 in attendance. Held at CMU's McConomy Auditorium and the Swartz Center, the event was kicked off by Meredith Meyer Grelli, Swartz Center Managing Director, with opening remarks given by Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O'Conner, County Executive Sara Innamorato and U.S. Senator Dave McCormick. This year's event was the most competitive to date, with a 70% increase in student entries over last year.
Throughout the day, 22 student-led startups pitched to a panel of 17 investors, who then judged the competition. Pitches ranged from a variety of industries and concepts, including drug discovery, video game hardware and of course, artificial intelligence.
The $375K prize pool was backed in part by new support from the David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund. In total, the competition awarded $125K in cash investments and $250K in Amazon Web Service credits.
Find out more about the winning teams!
Thursday, March 19, 2026
The Swartz Center Hosts Fireside Chat with Tris Jahanian and Martha Harty, Founders of EdTech Startup Martris
Last Friday, the Swartz Center hosted a Fireside Chat over lunch with special guests Tris Jahanian and Martha Harty, founders of edtech startup, Martris. During the talk, entitled "It's a Business, Not an App: Lessons Learned", Tris and Martha shared how they came to launch Martris, an edtech startup that brings conflict management to mobile, what it really takes to turn research into product, build across disciplines, navigate the startup journey and learn (and relearn) as founders.
Martha built her career in conflict resolution, developing pioneering interactive tools at Carnegie Mellon and helping teams learn how to navigate hard conversations, and Tris spent 30+ years engineering secure financial systems, holding two patents in high-performance distributed transaction authorization and building technology used by financial institutions nationwide.
The conversation was moderated by Anika Halappanavar, CMU Human Computer Interaction/Business student and 2025-27 Undergraduate Innovation Scholar.
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
RoboForce Raises $52M to Scale Physical AI Robo-Labor
RoboForce ('24 VentureBridge), a pioneer in Physical AI-powered Robo-Labor, has announced it has secured a $52M oversubscribed funding round, bringing the total raised to $67M. The new capital will accelerate the company’s next-generation robot foundation model, scale general-purpose Physical AI robots, and drive manufacturing readiness for commercial deployment.
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Gecko Robotics Inks U.S. Navy Contract with $71M Ceiling
Gecko Robotics has announced it has secured a five-year contract from the U.S. Navy with a ceiling of $71M. The company utilizes a suite of robotics and artificial intelligence to perform inspections of infrastructure that would be difficult or dangerous for a human to complete. Gecko, which has previously worked with the Navy, will now start working on 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Atlys Raises $36M in Series C Funding
Atlys, a New Delhi, India-based developer of a digital visa processing platform, has raised $36M in Series C funding. The company, founded by CMU and Innovation Scholar alumnus and CEO Mohak Nahta, intends to use the funds to accelerate its international expansion, specifically targeting new markets in Europe and the Middle East, and to advance its AI roadmap for automated document verification, eligibility checks and real-time traveler support.
Monday, March 16, 2026
Agilow Founder Shiv Panjwani Selected to Poets & Quants' 2025 Most Disruptive MBA Startups List
Shiv Panjwani, Tepper School of Business MBA, James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow and co-founder of Agilow, was selected to Poets & Quants' 2025 Most Disruptive MBA Startups list. Agilow reduces meeting and messaging overload for software development teams by creating conversational, voice-AI teammates who can literally call you, talk to you on the phone and carry information across the team.
Working out of the Swartz Center, Shiv and his Agilow teammates were finalists and pitched in this year's McGinnis Venture Competition.
Friday, March 13, 2026
The CMU Swartz Center Joins in Launching Third Coast Foundry Innovation Hub in San Francisco
We are proud to join seven institutions in launching Third Coast Foundry, a new San Francisco hub designed to strengthen connections between Midwest research universities and one of the world’s most active venture ecosystems.
CMU founders are building companies at the forefront of robotics, artificial
intelligence, biotech and other deep technologies. A significant number ultimately grow their ventures in the Bay Area—and as a global university, CMU is committed to supporting founders wherever they are most likely to succeed.
Third Coast Foundry will provide a shared base for university startups, researchers and partners traveling to the Bay Area, creating new opportunities to engage with investors, mentors and alumni across institutions.
The initiative also complements Swartz Center programs, such as the
VentureBridge pre-seed Accelerator and Lab to Market, our semiannual showcase highlighting deep-tech startups, which regularly brings our deep tech startups to the Bay Area.
We look forward to collaborating with partners across the Midwest to help more university innovations reach the marketplace and scale their impact.
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Announcing the Gebhardt Sandbox Fund 2026 Cohort
The CMU Swartz Center is excited to announce the twenty CMU student founders that each will be awarded $1K from the Bruce S. Gebhardt Sandbox Fund for the 2026 cycle. This fund established in 2025 provides crucial early stage capital to founders as they build, test, and launch their ventures.
This year marked our most competitive application cycle yet, with applications more than doubling from last year. The surge in interest reflects the remarkable momentum we are seeing across the Carnegie Mellon entrepreneurial ecosystem, as more students and researchers take the leap to build and scale bold new ideas.
As a special addition this year, an additional three founders will be selected from the McGinnis Venture Competition and Social Enterprise Prize Final Round founders to complete the 2026 cohort.
Thursday, March 12, 2026
CMU Startups Among Pittsburgh Business Times Ten Promising Startups to Watch in 2026
For the past five years, the Pittsburgh Business Times has annually highlighted startups in the region's various technology sectors worth watching. This year's list of ten Startups to Watch in 2026 spans across the greater Pittsburgh region and a variety of sectors, including hardware, artificial intelligence and life sciences.
Among the startups that made the list are CMU's HeadStrait Labs, co-founded by Alyssa Theroux and Mary Squire, and Dashstrom, Corp., co-founded by Dr. Kataki Desai and Christina Ramirez.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
CMU VentureBridge '25 Fort Strength Training Wearable Featured in Wired
Miranda Nover, CMU Mechanical Engineering alumna, VentureBridge '25 cohort participant and CEO, co-founder of strength training wearable company, Fort (YC W26), is featured in this month's edition of Wired.
Fort, a slim wearable that automatically tracks strength training, recently launched with its final production hardware and system and is available for preorder.
Friday, March 6, 2026
The McGinnis VC & SEP Final Round Teams Competing for $375K in Prizes Have Been Announced!
After a rigorous Round 1 and Round 2 process, the final undergraduate and graduate teams for the McGinnis Venture Competition have been announced. With just over a week to go, excitement is building for the final pitches and celebration on March 17.
The finalist teams will compete for the newly expanded $375,000 prize pool. This includes $125,000 in cash investment awards, made possible by the David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund, and $250,000 in AWS Activate credits provided by AWS for Startups.
Join us for the final round and help celebrate the next generation of student founders!
Learn more about the transformational Morgenthaler Gift
Learn more about the 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition
Register for the final round and Social Enterprise Prize Celebration on March 17
Friday, March 6, 2026
Powering the Future of Sport: A Draft WeekShowcase on April 22
The Swartz Center will host a $1.275M national pitch competition during the NFL Draft week in partnership with the NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers and AI Strike Team. “Powering the Future of Sport: A Draft Week Showcase,” will highlight startups at the intersection of sports and tech on Wednesday, April 22 at the new Carnegie Mellon Robotics Innovation Center.
A panel of high profile judges, including Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank investor; Ed Stack, Chairman of Dick's Sporting Goods and Foot Locker; Will Allen, former Pittsburgh Steeler and Partner at Magarac Venture Partners; and Deap Ubhi of AWS Startups, will decide the top pitches from around the country and the world.
The prize pool is made possible through major investments including $1M in cloud compute credit from AWS for Startups and $250K in investment from Magarac Venture Partners.
Thursday, March 5, 2026
HEBI Robotics Awarded $850K SBIR Contract from NASA to Develop Robots that Withstands the Vacuum of Space
Local robotics startup HEBI Robotics announced it was awarded a $850,000 SBIR Phase II contract from NASA to develop hardware components for use in outer space. HEBI was founded in 2014 as a spin-off of Carnegie Mellon University's Biorobotics lab.
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Astrobotic Inks Deal to Design Wheel for Lunar Habitation System
Astrobotic Technologies Inc., led by CEO John Thornton, announced it was awarded a contract from a French company to develop a wheel that would be used to help astronauts live on the moon. Astrobotic will develop a wheel system to be used to allow the MPH to move along the moon's uneven terrain.
Friday, February 27, 2026
McGinnis Venture Competition Unveils $375,000 in Prizes, Backed by David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund and AWS
The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University announce the establishment of the David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund, creating a new endowed $50,000 annual Morgenthaler Prize to support the CMU’s flagship McGinnis Venture Competition.
This visionary commitment increases the competition’s total cash investment awards to $125,000 and contributes to an overall $375,000 prize package, which also includes $250,000 in AWS Activate credits for winning teams.
The newly endowed Morgenthaler Prize will be awarded annually to the competition’s first-place team, providing transformative early-stage capital at a critical moment in venture formation and growth. The endowment ensures that generations of Carnegie Mellon student entrepreneurs will benefit from the Morgenthalers’ enduring commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship.
Learn more about the transformational Morgenthaler Gift
Learn more about the 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition
Register for the final round and Social Enterprise Prize Celebration on March 17
Thursday, February 26, 2026
AI in Action: Meet the 2026 Imagine Cup Semifinalists
Two founders from Carnegie Mellon University are semifinalists in the Microsoft 2026 Imagine Cup. Surya Kukkapalli, Tepper School of Business MBA and James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow, founder of Revora Health and Vivaan Sawant, CMU's College of Engineering, co-founder of SpoilSafe. Surya and Vivaan are both working out of the CMU Swartz Center.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
CMU Health Startups That Could Improve Patient Care
At Carnegie Mellon University, breakthroughs in robotics, materials science and bioengineering are increasingly shaped by a shared goal—making health care more precise and less burdensome for patients and providers. Meet four CMU-affiliated startups that are translating academic research into tools that could improve health care for millions of Americans:
Humotech (Josh Caputo), Edulis Therapeutics (Spencer Matonis, VentureBridge 2025), FluidFormBio (Adam Feinberg) and Advanced Optronics (Jay Reddy, VentureBridge 2022).
Friday, February 20, 2026
The CMU Swartz Center Strengthened CMU’s Silicon Valley Connections at Lab to Market Investor Summit
Carnegie Mellon University tightened its connection to Silicon Valley by hosting a tech investor showcase in San Francisco, CA last Wednesday.
CMU’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship brought together entrepreneurs and high-powered venture capitalists to meet and exchange insights with CMU professors and researchers at Swartz’s exclusive Lab to Market Spring 2026 event on February 11, 2026, held at Pear VC. The Summit began with entrepreneurial inspiration in the form of a keynote conversation with Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity—the breakthrough AI search engine company valued last September at $20B. Speaking to Sameer Gandhi—partner at renowned VC firm Accel, founded by CMU alumnus Jim Swartz, Srinivas told the audience of about 250 people that tech success comes with pain and paranoia.
The day was a combination of real talk about Silicon Valley’s interest in the next big thing and a chance for Carnegie Mellon faculty and students with tech startup companies or startup ambitions to show their innovative ideas, share learnings and make important connections. The focus was on two areas of innovation now obsessing the tech world: AI and physical AI (otherwise known as robotics). The Pittsburgh campus is the birthplace of both artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicle technology, and the results of such cutting-edge research were obvious to Lab to Market participants.
Thursday, February 19, 2026
CMU Spinoff Efficient Computer Raises $60M Series A Round
Efficient Computer, founded in 2023 by a team of researchers, professors and alumni from Carnegie Mellon University, has announced it has raised $60M in a Series A round, led by New York City and Bay Area investment group Triatomic Capital.
The company has developed a general purpose computer processor that it says is approximately 100 times more energy-efficient than leading processors on the market. It was also named a Startup to Watch by the Pittsburgh Business Times in 2024.
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Trainwell Partners with Peloton Interactive
Trainwell recently announced its biggest launch in its history, Peloton Interactive's Personal Trainer, powered by Trainwell.
Trainwell founder Matt Spettel shared, "We’re creating what we believe is the most comprehensive virtual personal training experience in the market by fusing Peloton’s incredible magic formula of premium equipment, intuitive software and expert human instructors, with Trainwell’s deep personalization and human accountability. Our trainers onboard every client face-to-face, hand-craft plans that combine Peloton’s strength, cardio and recovery class content while holding clients accountable through consistent communication and check-ins".
Join the waitlist to get in on the action!
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
CMU Team Takes Second Place and $2K at the 3 Rivers Venture Fair
Carnegie Mellon University Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Professor Niki Kittur and HCI Post Doctoral Fellow Vikram Mohanty (PhD Innovation & Commercialization Fellow), recently won second place and received $2K for their company, Analogical Engines, at the 3 Rivers Venture Fair (3RVF) hosted by the PIttsburgh Venture Capital Association (PVCA) on February 4-5, 2026.
The 3 Rivers Venture Fair (3RVF) is Pittsburgh's premier venture capital event, connecting high-growth startups with investors, corporate partners, and innovation leaders since 2002.
Friday, February 13, 2026
Gather AI Raises $40M Series B to Scale Physical Intelligence Platform for Global Supply Chain
Gather AI (VentureBridge '18 startup), the leader in Physical AI for logistics, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Smith Point Capital Management. The investment includes participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Tribeca Venture Partners, Bling Capital, Dundee Venture Capital, XRC Ventures, and new investor The Hillman Company. To date, the company has raised $74 million.
Thursday, February 12, 2026
CMU Swartz Center's Steven Guo Selected to the 2026 Class of the Pittsburgh 30 Under 30
The Pittsburgh Business Times 2026 class of 30 Under 30 honorees has been selected. Among the honorees is Steven Guo, Program Manager, Student & Alumni Founder Pipeline at the CMU Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship.
This year's class of honorees will be honored in a series of profiles in a special edition of the Pittsburgh Business Times on March 20. They will also be honored at an awards celebration in April.
Thursday, February 12, 2026
CMU Startup Lunon Announces Pre-Seed Round
Lunon, co-founded by Carnegie Mellon students Dhruv Shajikumar (CEO), Ryan Hyatt (COO) and Connor Hyatt (CTO), have announced via LinkedIn Lunon’s pre-seed round, led by General Catalyst and including SV Angel, Genius Ventures and their phenomenal angels Shuo Wang, Cory Levy and Menelaos Mazarakis. The team also gives special thanks to their first investor Joshua Browder, CEO at DoNotPay, for being their first believer.
Lunon is a secure AI workspace designed specifically for consulting firms. It brings research, analysis and client-ready outputs into one system, with strict client-by-client data isolation and enterprise-grade controls, all built around how consulting work actually happens. To accelerate development, the founders are relocating to San Francisco to work side by side with consulting teams.
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Carnegie Mellon MBA Team Wins First Place and $7K at The Bringham Young University Faith & Belief at Work Case Competition
On February 4-7, an enthusiastic group of MBA students from the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business including Yule (YJ) Lin (James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow 2025-27) Barakissa Gakou, Tarsh (Tarshish) K, and Jessica Figard (Innovation Scholar and JD/MBA candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Tepper School of Business) represented CMUTepper at The Brigham Young University's Faith & Belief at Work Case Competition.
The team took first place, winning $7K for their response their assigned problem: How do you build culturally trained AI agents that support people's religions, cultures and preferences in a cost-effective and scalable way? The team suggested a RAG Architecture that incorporated human feedback through an App they designed to help create workshops for EBG's/ERG's/BRG's to create experiences to learn from each other, while doubling as an interface to train AI on culturally nuanced data.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Several Carnegie Mellon Startups Selected to Join AlphaLab 2026 Cohort
AlphaLab has announced the companies joining its 2026 cohort. This year’s cohort includes 20 startups, making it the largest AlphaLab has supported at once. The companies span AI-driven software, health innovation, robotics, energy and advanced manufacturing, with a shared focus on embedding intelligence into systems and products used in real-world environments.
Several startups from CMU made the list including: ClearSolar, Precision Neuroscopics, Power 3D, Mimetic, Sealion Energy and SpoilSafe.
Friday, February 6, 2026
PDS Health Selects Pearl as Enterprise AI Partner to Support Scaled Clinical Integration
PDS Health®, a leading integrated healthcare support organization, has selected Pearl as its enterprise partner to expand the use of artificial intelligence that supports real-time radiologic review and enterprise-level clinical insight across its more than 1,100 dental practices nationwide. Founded by CMU alumnus and CEO Ophir Tanz, Pearl’s platform will provide real-time radiologic support and enterprise-grade clinical intelligence to support diagnostic consistency and clinical insight at scale.
Thank you to our Swartz Center Patrons
