Venture Lab

Accelerating Yale faculty-led ventures through expert coaching

Venture Lab is a new Yale Ventures program designed to support faculty founders who have established proof-of-concept data and are looking to accelerate their venture development to reach their next milestone. The program convenes a series of "Venture Labs" for its faculty participants. The Labs are a series of intensive coaching sessions with industry and investment experts carefully chosen by the Yale Ventures team to match the needs of the faculty innovator.

Working across six major project themes—therapeutics, medtech, digital healthcare, data science, high tech, and climate tech—Venture Lab aims to help Yale faculty innovators:

  • enable faculty founders to explain their proof of concept experiments completed to date
  • develop a deep understanding of market and competitive landscapes
  • think critically about their products and indications
  • understand the investor point of view

Core to the Venture Lab experience is the assembly of a Venture Lab team. Each faculty member is assigned a team of industry experts, investors, and fellows to help them develop solutions and accelerate their venture development.

Who should apply

Successful Venture Lab participants are Yale faculty with proof-of-concept data with existing venture or a strong desire to start one. Ideal participants are also founders who may lack a strong Board of Advisors or leadership team and will benefit from Venture Lab’s approach of assembling industry experts and consultants who are laser-focused on your venture development.  

How it works

Each faculty innovator participates in several 90-minute sessions over the course of a month with a team of experts. These teams are briefed on your venture, and develop intelligence on the market and competitive landscapes.

  1. Teams: Small teams of industry and investment experts pulled from Yale Ventures (EIRs) are matched with faculty innovator 
  2. Pitches: Faculty innovator(s) pitch idea and data to each team
  3. Pre-work: Venture Lab Fellows pull analysis and develop a series of questions for the Venture Lab team in preparation for a session. In this process, Venture Lab fellows speak with each expert. 
  4. Venture Lab Convenes: In a virtual session the Venture Lab convenes, including the Yale faculty member or investigator, 3-5 EIRs, a Venture Lab Fellow, and two members of the Yale Ventures team who work with Yale faculty ventures and business development teams. The format of each Lab is as follows:
    • :5 Introductions 
    • :5 - :10 Faculty presentation 
    • :10 - :70 Q & A on science, business, GTM, competitors 
    • :70 - :90 Goal setting 
  5. Memo Circulated: The Venture Lab fellow develops a memo to consolidate feedback into specific and clear deliverables for the following sessions. 
Program Details
  • Format: Each team participants in 1 Venture Lab session per month
  • Sessions: 90 minutes long, most teams return for additional sessions
Venture Lab Teams
  • 4-5 Yale Ventures “Entrepreneurs in Residence” 
  • 2-3 Yale Ventures staff members from business and venture development 
  • 1-2 Venture Lab Fellows, graduate student fellows supporting the program
Apply

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis beginning in spring 2023. Sign up for Yale Ventures emails to find out when applications are available.

Contact

Email: yaleventures@yale.edu