Yale Startup Matchmaking Event Features Student and Faculty Pitches and Co-Founder Networking

By Hailey O'Conner ’24

Thanks to the collaborative efforts of Yale Ventures, Tsai CITY, the Yale SOM Program on Entrepreneurship, Yale Computer Science Career Fair, and Yale Center for Biomedical Innovation & Technology, the inaugural Yale Startup Matchmaking event took place in February 2024.

The atmosphere was lively with 15 teams of presenters from Yale student and faculty startups and 200 attendees; the event was designed to cultivate meaningful connections within the Yale entrepreneurial community. The first hour of the event featured 3-minute startup pitches from each venture, highlighting the problem each startup was solving and ending with their area of need—many were looking for Yale talent to help them build, scale, or develop digital prototypes. Participating students brought their resumes for the second half of the evening which was devoted to networking between founders and event participants.

“I was excited for the opportunity to connect with interested students and build out the team through talented students at Yale College. This was a great opportunity to close the gap between the talent at Yale College and startup ideas in other parts of Yale,” said Eunjee Koh, cofounder of ThreadMap.

A diverse mix of students from Yale's various graduate and professional schools, as well as Yale College, were in attendance. Registrants exhibited a strong interest in all aspects of startup ventures, ranging from software engineering and data science to business operations and marketing.

“The Founder Matchmaking event was fantastic. It provided founders with a great opportunity to pitch their startup in a succinct way to a large audience that may be less familiar with startups and pitching in general. It also produced a much-needed linkage between founding teams and the huge amount of talent available throughout Yale. I could've benefited hugely from a program like this earlier in my time at SOM, and think it's a no-brainer to keep going. I met so many bright and entrepreneurial undergrads,” said Jordan Montour, co-founder of Preesh, a wish-list app that allows users to discover the perfect gift for their loved ones.

“This event embodies what I appreciate as the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship at Yale: Bold Ideas. Multidisciplinary teams. Expanding Impact. Being able to create a platform for faculty and student venture teams to not only pitch their ideas but to also create connections with Yale talent and potential co-founders was thrilling,” said Amy Kundrat, Director of Innovation Community at Yale Ventures and one of the event organizers.