Most Disruptive MBA Startups Of 2023

A LOOK AHEAD

Where do these disruptive startups see their place in the future? Koji Muto hopes to cut 100 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions through his Ki Hydrogen startup. Similarly, Stwart Peña Feliz pictures MacroCycle Technologies moving plastics recycling away from environmentally-harmful fossil fuels. Halo Braids intends to cut a billion hours out of the eight billion hours that women spend on braiding the hair each year. And Natalie Dranchuk is already envisioning the finish line that every founder hopes to cross.

“We are dreaming of an IPO,” jokes the Odyssey founder.

To do that, entrepreneurs must be patient and positive, says Todd Cutter, co-founder of Naturacur Wound Healing. Rather than becoming discouraged when they fall short, he adds, founders must never forget what ultimately defines their startups’ success.

“We have to stay focused, resilient, adaptable, risk-tolerant, and competitive,” Cutter adds. “If we can give any advice to a fellow founder, it would be this: Believe in yourself, take care of yourself, embrace temporary failures, and surround yourself with like-minded people who will support your vision. It is easy to talk yourself out of pursuing your venture without a tenacious mindset. How do we motivate ourselves daily? [In our case], we think about all those people we could be helping to save their dignity and save lives.”

MBA Startup	MBA Program	Industry Founding Students	Founding Students	Funding
PetPax	Babson College (Olin)	Pet Wellness	Nathan S.K. Ruff and Anthony L. Gatti	$40,000
TruLeague	Babson College (Olin)	Enterprise Software – Higher Education	Lakshya Daga	$70,000
Chaser	U.C. Berkeley (Haas)	Project Management Software; B2B SaaS	Josh Martow (MBA ’23), Elias Adum	$100,000
AVX	University of Cambridge (Judge)	FinTech	Virut Hemnilrat	NA
Conduit	Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	HRTech/Future of Work	Max Holmes and Ani Kapuria	$25,000
inclusive+	University of Chicago (Booth)	Healthcare	Lori Ebenstein & Anna Jacobs	Pre-seed
Zelia	University of Chicago (Booth)	AI (Fashion Tech)	Laura Mattos	$199,000
LogTrack AI	Columbia Business School	Trucking/ Transportation/ Machine Learning	Hidayat Hamidov (MBA ‘23), Adithya Krishnakumar (SEAS)	Pre-seed
Sharp Performance	Columbia Business School	Health/Defense-Tech	Benjamin Curley (MBA ’23); Andrew Sakmar (MBA ’23)	Pre-seed
Fig Medical	Cornell University (Johnson)	Health Tech	Florence Luna, Johanna Schneider	$100,000
Rescale	Dartmouth College (Tuck)	Technology/Supply Chain	Julia Megson	$2,500,000
Allergood	Duke University (Fuqua)	HealthTech/SaaS	Michelle Addison	$32,000
Brikap	ESADE	EdTech – Social Impact	Juliana Vélez	Pre-seed
Reservoir	Georgetown University (McDonough)	Identity and Access Management	James Azar	Seed Round
In Good Company	Georgia Tech (Scheller)	Professional Development	Sarah Naumann and Amanda Shojaee	$25,000
Earthbond	Harvard Business School	Cleantech x Fintech	Chidalu Onyenso	$150,000
Halo Braid	Harvard Business School	Beauty/Software-Enabled Hardware	Yinka Ogunbiyi, David Afolabi	$1,170,000
Bonocart	IESE Business School	SaaS / ESG / Artificial Intelligence	Kofi Acquah	NA
Nowledge Healthcare	Indiana University (Kelley Direct Online)	Healthcare	Brad Reardon	NA
Orica Chem Innovation	INSEAD	Engineering Services	Iris Zhao (23J)	Self-Funded
PRONOE	INSEAD	Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)	Nicolas Sdez, INSEAD MBA 23J	$330,000
Prembly	Johns Hopkins (Carey)	Enterprise Software as Service (SaaS)	Lanre Ogungbe	$3,100,000
Ki Hydrogen	London Business School	ClimateTech / Energy	Koji Muto	$1,000,000
epiSLS	University of Michigan (Ross)	Medical Device	Parker Martin, Cory Cooney	Non-Dilutive Grant Funding
MacroCycle Technologies	MIT (Sloan)	Plastic Recycling	Stwart Peña Feliz (MIT Sloan MBA ’23) & Jan-Georg Rosenboom (MIT, Postdoc in Chemical Engineering)	$4,000,000
medikana	MIT (Sloan)	HealthTech	Corina Negron	$40,000
Vital Audio	New York University (Stern)	Digital Health	Divya Mehta (MBA ‘23, NYU Stern), Nyamitse-Calvin-Mahinda, Harsh Sonthalia	$600,000
Habit	Northwestern University (Kellogg)	Food & Beverage	Miguel Caruncho	$15,000
Zeestr	Northwestern University (Kellogg)	Fundriasing Tech	Lauren Biegler	$155,000
ElectricFish Energy	University of Oxford (Saïd)	Clean Energy/Electric Mobility	Folasade Ayoola	$1,500,000
Goldie	Rice University (Jones)	Fashion Tech	Viviane Nguyen (FTMBA ‘23), Samantha Wong (FTMBA ‘22), Stephanie Zhou (FTMBA ‘23)	$52,500
Project Read	Stanford GSB	EdTech	Vivek Ramakrishnan	NA
Outmore Living	University of Texas (McCombs)	Furniture	Kevin Long ’23 and Alex Duncan ‘22	$1,000,000
Odyssey	UCLA (Anderson)	SaaS/AI/digital health	Natalia (Natalie) Dranchuk (MBA ’23)	$200,000
Renew Solar	UC San Diego (Rady)	Solar	Heather Hardenberg	NA
TuneHatch	Vanderbilt University (Owen)	Music and Entertainment Technology	Christal Hector, Nathan Youssef	$120,000
NewSublease	University of Virginia (Darden)	Real Estate / Tech (PropTech)	Rooney Lee (Darden 23)	$28,000
Naturacur Wound Healing	University of Washington (Foster)	Wound Care	Todd Cutter (Founder), Josh McDonald (Co-Founder)	$600,000
Benchmark Learning	Washington University (Olin)	Education, Online Tutoring	Paarvv Goel	$130,000
Flagler Health	Wharton School	Healthcare	Albert Katz	$1,000,000
Nemu	Wharton School	AgeTech, FinTech, DeathTech, PropTech	Sarah Powers	$600,000
Banofi Leather	Yale School of Management	Biomaterials	Jinali Mody, Maggie Boreham, Isobel Campbell	$100,000