The Most Disruptive MBA Startups Of 2020

AN ACCELERATION TO ONLINE

The coursework certainly proved invaluable. Yale SOM’s Daisy Rosales will never forget her Innovator course, where Professor Rodrigo Canales broke students into teams to build marshmallow-topped towers supported by dried spaghetti strands. The lesson: entrepreneurs spend too much time planning and not enough building. At Babson, the Digital Transformation course cut close to home for Dan Edlebeck, whose Exidio startup delivers encrypted VPN technology.

“As we moved from in-person to virtual courses due to the pandemic, we, as a class, had to make a digital transformation. The process of transitioning to virtual lectures, group projects, breakout discussions, case study analysis, and guest presenters was completely seamless. Not only did we gain deep insights as to how small business and corporates have pivoted to being digitally native, we lived the experience in real-time within higher education.”

Indeed, the pandemic tested the mettle of these founders like no other. That was particularly true for Tack, a Fintech startup launched out of the University of Virginia’s Darden School. Initially, Tack was designed to help consumers tip service workers digitally using options like an app or QR code. When COVID-19 forced lockdowns – and the restaurant, hotel, and tourism industries plummeted – the founders pivoted to the last game in town: church donations. Rather than shuttering their business, says Alexander Spencer, COVID-19 actually accelerated it.

“With classes completely digital, we had more time to double down on the development, branding, and vision for the company,” Spencer writes. [My partner] was able to spend some additional time really getting our technology platform ready to bring on a number of clients. [I] was also able to use [my] network to find some former undergraduate interns that worked with [me] at Toast last summer to help with the sales effort.”

COVID’S SILVER LINING

In fact, COVID-19 served as a boon for many of these fledgling startups. MIT Sloan’s Brett Sternfield called it a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity – one that forced his team to re-evaluate and ultimately dump their “mediocre plans.” For Northwestern Kellogg’s Din Din – a Brazilian Fintech catering to underserved small businesses – the pandemic reinforced the value of online services.

“People couldn’t go to bank branches in person, or even receive check payments physically,” explains co-founder Brunna Beccaro. “For us, this increased the pace at which customers adapted our solution. One of these customers, who was piloting our payroll payment solution before COVID hit, ended up rolling out DinDin to almost 3,000 of its underbanked employees.”

HEC Paris’ Sam Abazari, who founded a property management firm as an MBA, also found plenty of silver linings to this spring’s outbreak. “It almost feels counter-intuitive to say this, but COVID-19 was the secret catalyst for AJAN’s launch,” he asserts. “With social distancing in place, I was able to work on my business plan with almost no distractions and more importantly, no FOMO. Moreover, as cost-cutting measures were taken across the corporate world, I was able to get the talent I needed on board.”

ARE YOU A PRETEND ENTREPRENEUR?

No, MBA entrepreneurs are wired differently. You won’t find them heading off to the MBB or bulge bracket after graduation. And their startups don’t just follow the ‘faster, cheaper, easier’ template. For these disruptors, entrepreneurship is a means to realize a mission – one that starts with an impulse. “When creating a business, inspiration is found just about everywhere,” explains UCLA’s Evan Quinn. “Each trip to the supermarket is R&D, scrolling through your Instagram feed can be the spark that creates a new campaign idea, and having a difficult time asking for a non-alcoholic beverage at a bar can be the “aha” moment to go all in.”

As MBAs quickly learn, ideas are the easy part. That may have been the main lesson from the Venture Velocity class that Alexander Spencer took at the University of Virginia. Here, Professor Damon DeVito posed the one question that will dog every would-be change agent:

“Are you playing a pretend entrepreneur?”

“He challenges us with this fundamental question because…playing a pretend entrepreneur is more fun than doing actual entrepreneurship,” Spencer notes. “Actual entrepreneurship requires commitment, grit, and failure.”

More than that, it requires education – one that offers resources, coaching, technical training, and accountability. In other words, it comes down to the support — the faculty, staff, and classmates who share their passion and generous with their insights and experience. For these disruptors, the best place to find that support and community was business school.

“I had many professors I could turn to, trust, and build trust with,” adds the University of Minnesota’s Eric Muckey. “You might hear jokes about “Minnesota Nice.” “But “nice” isn’t what I needed. My advisers were kind, certainly, but they were also extremely effective, seasoned, and knew how to motivate entrepreneurs. I was very fortunate to land at Carlson for that reason.”

MBA Startup	MBA Program	Founding Students	Industry	Funding
Empower Coffee Roasters	Arizona State (W. P. Carey)	Denise Napolitano	Food & Beverage	NA
Exidio	Babson College (Olin)	Dan Edlebeck	Computer Software	NA
Hoamsy	Babson College (Olin)	Richard O’Brien	Internet Technology	$1,000
CheerNotes	Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	Asha Banks	Retail	NA
LUKH	University of Chicago (Booth)	Rajul Parekh, Kinney Sheth, Karen Desai	Retail	NA
Sprout	University of Chicago (Booth)	Alana Taube, Niki Tadiparthi	Nonprofit	$15,000
AVEC Drinks	Columbia Business School	Alex Doman, Denetrias Charlemagne	Beverages	NA
avoMD	Columbia Business School	Laurence Coman	Health Tech	NA
Hopscotch	Cornell University (Johnson)	Marla Beyer, Nicole Beck, Kelcie Lee	Health Tech	NA
BIOMILQ	Duke University (Fuqua)	Michelle Eggers	Biotechnology	$3,500,000
Kleta	ESADE	Diego Casabe	Cycling/Mobility	$100,000 Euros
LeverEdge	Harvard Business School	Nikhil Agarwal, Chris Abkarians	Student Loans	$2,500,000
Stride Funding	Harvard Business School	Tess Michaels	FinTech	$3,750,000
AJAN Management	HEC Paris	Sam Abazari, Davina Chang	Real Estate	NA
Soterias Solutions	HEC Paris	Andrew Quinn	Water Sensor Technology	$1,400,000 Euros
Mapo Tapo	INSEAD	Alessia Fontanari, Daniele Packard, Anuj Karkare,  Daniele Calvo Pollino	Sports/Travel	NA
Thawra Network	University of Michigan (Ross)	Rima Imad Fadlallah	Media/Entertainment	$45,000
Lost&Found	University of Minnesota (Carlson)	Erik Muckey	Mental Health	$431,000
Ocular Technologies	MIT (Sloan)	Grayson Armstrong, Zoan Liu, Brett Sternfield	Healthcare	$400,000
MyOwn Communications	North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)	Ricky Rosati, Kevin Sun, Chihao Tsui	Healthcare	$11,000
DinDin	Northwestern University (Kellogg)	Brunna Beccaro	FinTech	$220,000
UnifiHealth	Northwestern University (Kellogg)	Olivia Cameron, Ross Klosterman, Brodie Stone	Healthcare	NA
The Ugly Company	Notre Dame (Mendoza)	Ben Moore	Consumer Packaged Goods	$100,000
ONE432	New York University (Stern)	Umar Belal	Social Impact Fashion	NA
Women Offshore Foundation	Rice University (Jones)	Ally Cedeno	Offshore Energy	$15,000
FarmRaise	Stanford GSB	Jayce Hafner, Sami Tellatin	AgTech	NA
Praxis Lab	Stanford GSB	Elise Smith	Diversity & Inclusion	NA
Twentyeight Health	U.C. Berkeley (Haas)	Amy Fan	Consumer Health	NA
hiyo	UCLA (Anderson)	Evan Quinn, George Youmans	Beverage	NA
Tack	University of Virginia (Darden)	Alexander Spencer and Stephen Joy	FinTech	$2,500
Hum Industrial Technology	Washington University (Olin)	Byron Porter	Freight Rail	$525,000
Aureum	Wharton School	Yunhan Gao; Xufei Yu, Shuaiqing Liu, Shujing Peng	Telemedicine	$30,000
Connected Mobile	Wharton School	Andie Kaplan	Telecommunications	NA
Brio	Yale SOM	Daisy Rosales, Aaron Rosales	Global Mental Health	$150,000

DON’T MISS: MEET THE MOST DISRUPTIVE MBA STARTUPS OF 2019