Teams from eLab, Cornell’s student startup accelerator; the Runway Startup Postdocs Program at Cornell Tech; and BioVenture eLab at Weill Cornell Medicine pitched their innovative business ideas at the annual Cornell Silicon Valley: Student Startup Showcase at San Francisco’s Autodesk Gallery on March 27.
On-Campus Entrepreneurship Programs
Our on-campus entrepreneurship programs provide the tools for students, faculty, staff, and alumni to take their entrepreneurial ideas to the next level. From mentorship and relationship building, webinars and business accelerators, to co-working spaces and competitions, we support and amplify all entrepreneurship activity across Cornell’s campuses.
Big Red Ventures Investor Network
Connects early stage investors to an array of New York State and Cornell affiliated startups
eLab: Cornell’s Student Accelerator
A collaboration of Student Agencies Foundation and Entrepreneurship at Cornell
Engineering Entrepreneurs in Residence
Partnering experienced entrepreneurs with Ph.D. candidates, postdocs, and faculty members
Grow-NY Business Competition
Business competition growing an enduring food and agriculture innovation cluster
Interior Northeast I-Corps Hub (IN I-Corps)
Taking innovation from the laboratory to the marketplace
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Workshop Series
Exploring the entrepreneurial journey from ideation to operation
Johnson Entrepreneurship Track
Building on the MBA curriculum to support students in development of their business ideas
Manufacturing Hardware Accelerator
Supporting startups ready to take their prototypes into production
Northeast Regional Food Business Center
Helping farmers and food businesses access new markets and available resources
Northeastern Dairy Product Innovation Competition
Competition for innovators using raw milk and/or dairy ingredients
NSF Engines Development Award: Upstate 2.0
Transitioning Upstate New York to a climate-smart economy
Prototyping Hardware Accelerator
Offering innovators a deep dive into prototyping and hardware entrepreneurship
Protofacturing Hardware Accelerator
Supporting physical product startups preparing for initial manufacturing runs
Rev: Ithaca Startup Works
Providing mentorship, accelerator programs, co-working space, events, and networking
Southern Tier Startup Alliance (STSA)
A member organization of business incubators in the Southern Tier
Impact
Our programs bring entrepreneurs together in a community of innovation.
Over 300 students have participated in our entrepreneurial programs
Over 75 entrepreneurs-in-residence have mentored our on-campus entrepreneurial community
Over 100 student startups have gone from ideation to operation after completing our programs
Campus Connections
We collaborate with the entrepreneurial community across Cornell University’s campus to amplify the opportunities and resources in our innovation network.
News in Accelerators & Incubators
Students pitch innovative startups in San Francisco
Jiang Fellows welcomes inaugural cohort
The Jiang Fellows Program recently welcomed 20 students to its 2025 cohort. The students will spend the spring semester sharpening their entrepreneurial skills while preparing for a fully funded summer internship at a startup of their choice.
eLab welcomes 13 startups to Spring 2025 cohort
Twenty-four startups were accepted for the eLab student startup accelerator fall cohort, and 13 will advance to the spring cohort. These startups have shown remarkable progress in validating their ideas and refining their business models.
Continued Growth for Rev’s Startup Community in 2024
The numbers are trickling in for 2024, another successful year for the founders, employees, and investors of Rev: Ithaca Startup Works 32 member startups. Success looked different for our Rev members as some accepted new partnerships, some closed rounds of seed funding, and others continued to innovate. Regardless, Rev’s community continued to grow and scale their businesses while positively impacting the Ithaca region and beyond.
Applications open for seventh annual Grow-NY competition
Applications for the annual Grow-NY food and agriculture business competition are open to high-growth agrifood startups through May 15.
Student startup pilots AI grading assistant, joins Y Combinator
GradeWiz, an artificial-intelligence teaching assistant founded by Cornell undergraduates Max Bohun ’25 and Aman Garg ’25, has been accepted into startup accelerator Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 Batch.
Cornell Entrepreneurs Excel in Local Pitch Competitions
The Fuzehub 2024 Commercialization Competition during the New York State Innovation Summit had seven prize winners, five of which are Cornell-supported entrepreneurs. Of the five, four have participated in multiple hardware accelerators at Rev: Ithaca Startup Works and the grand prize winner is a current Center for Life Science Ventures member, a former Life Science Technology Fellow and Ignite Fellow.
Celebrating 10 years at Rev: Ithaca Startup Works
In response to the 2014 opening of Rev: Ithaca Startup Works, CNN Business ran the headline: “Can this Small Town Compete with Silicon Valley?” While Ithaca has made headlines for its oversized number of startups per capita and having the highest R&D expenditures in New York state, 10 years later, it’s clear Rev: Ithaca Startup Works is not interested in competing with Silicon Valley, but in imagining an entrepreneurial ecosystem entirely its own. Over the past 10 years, Rev’s member startups have created over 1,000 jobs and generated over 100 million dollars in revenue.
Johnson Summer Startup Accelerator Teams Pitch Startups in NYC
The Johnson Summer Startup Accelerator (JSSA), offered by the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, is an intensive, summer-long program that guides MBA student founders through three phases of entrepreneurship education: customer discovery, developing solutions, and testing.