Graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard have teamed up to launch a startup accelerator focused on supporting early-stage web3 startups associated with both institutions.
This accelerator, called the MIT x Harvard Blockchain Accelerator, is a non-dilutive program. That means we don’t invest in approved startups. “The accelerator doesn’t take equity in the startups we accelerate,” Sam Lehman, a core contributor to the accelerator, told The Block. “We have no plans to invest or provide grants in the short term. Our focus is purely on mentoring.”
Lehman, Luke Xie, and Hannah Shen from MIT and Liang Wu from Harvard are four key contributors to the accelerator.
The accelerator’s founding mentors come from one of the two organizations, including Tieshun Roquerre (aka “Pacman”), founder of NFT marketplace Blur and Ethereum Layer 2 Blast. Keone Hon and Eunice Giarta, co-founders of layer-1 blockchain developer Monad Labs; Kenny Li, co-founder of layer 2 network Manta; and Mirza Uddin, head of business development at Injective Labs, makers of the Cosmos-based layer 1 blockchain network.
Some unidentified members of cryptocurrency companies, including a16z, Avalanche, Dragonfly, Galaxy Digital, Nascent and Polygon, are also mentors in the accelerator. Lehman said it could not explicitly name these individuals because of the company’s policies.
To be part of an accelerator, a startup’s founding team must have at least one member associated with one of the two institutions, Lehman said. They can be current students (undergraduate or graduate), alumni, faculty, researchers and staff, he said.
Stanford University also operates a similar blockchain accelerator that has founded companies such as Modulus Labs, Nocturne, Zero Gravity, and Caldera.
First cohort of MIT x Harvard accelerator
The accelerator’s first cohort program is scheduled to begin next month and end in June. Key contributors are currently accepting applications. They, along with student club leaders from both institutions, will review all applications and make the final decisions on who to accept into the cohort, Lehman said.
When asked how the accelerator would benefit from being non-dilutive, Lehman said the program’s goal is “to make the MIT and Harvard alumni ecosystem and the broader Cambridge cryptocurrency ecosystem as strong as possible.”
Lehman is also a key contributor to the Beacon accelerator, launched in 2022 by Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal. Beacon is part of Nailwal’s cryptocurrency venture arm, Symbolic Capital, which is also headed by Lehman. Lehman said the MIT x Harvard blockchain accelerator is “completely separate” from his work on Beacon.
Xie is also participating in Press Start Capital, a fellowship program or pre-accelerator for cryptocurrency startups. Lehman said Xie’s accelerator work is also completely separate from its work at Press Start.
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