Build and Launch Summer Accelerators
The Polsky Center Build and Launch summer accelerators give teams the opportunity to work intensively and exclusively on their businesses and social enterprises in a collaborative, dynamic environment over the summer.
The Build accelerator allows students to focus on building the key elements of their venture and validating assumptions around their market or customers, while the Launch accelerator focuses on fundraising, selling, and gaining and maintaining momentum.
Founders receive:
- $10,000 SAFE investment for every selected team
- $5,000 stipend for each eligible founder
- Access to dedicated coaches with expertise in fundraising, sales, and marketing
- Office hours with VCs and other Chicago innovation partners
Founders will also travel to San Francisco for a 2-night, 3-day field experience, meeting with University of Chicago alumni and immersing themselves in the West Coast startup community.
Key Dates and Deadlines
Application Deadline
The current application deadline has passed.
In-kind Resources
Over $100,000 in in-kind services and resources from:
- Airtable – combines the flexibility of a spreadsheet with the power of database
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) – compute power, database storage, content delivery, and other cloud resources
- Bubble – build fully-functional data-driven web applications live in a fraction of the time necessary to code it from scratch
- Carta – a solution that helps companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans
- Clerky – a popular way for top-tier startups to get legal paperwork done safely, including discounted incorporation for Delaware C-Corps
- HubSpot – solutions to help you grow better, whether you want to increase leads, accelerate sales, simplify your processes, or build a powerful website
- Mintel – the world’s leading market intelligence agency, cover 38,000 product launches a month, asking thousands of people for their opinions each day, and tracking consumer spending across 34 countries
- Mixpanel – with powerful, self-serve product analytics solutions, teams can easily analyze how and why people engage, convert, and retain to improve their user experience
- Polsky Center Mentorship Program – access to a variety of carefully curated entrepreneurs and experts from a wide range of industries
- Polsky Center Fab Lab –prototyping expertise and resources for entrepreneurs, particularly those who are creating a physical product, offering 3D printing on professional-grade printers
- ShipBob – outsourced operations for ecommerce startups
- ZenBusiness – the easiest and most affordable way to form a new business entity (LLC, C Corp, S Corp) in all 50 states
- ZenDesk – a service-first CRM company with support, sales, and customer engagement products designed to improve customer relationships
Sponsors
Sharon Sadow Alper, AB ’80, JD ’84 & Andrew Alper, AB ’80, MBA ’81
John Edwardson, MBA ’72
Kenneth W. O’Keefe, MBA ’93
Ellen Rudnick, MBA ’73 & Paul Earle
Thomas W. Wells, MBA ’94
Donna Zarcone, MBA ’87 & Phillip Zarcone
Partners
