Harvard Grid Accelerator

Project: With PSE Accelerator funding, the lab of Professor Jennifer A. Lewis developed new functional materials and a novel 3D-printing platform with the potential to enable 3D printing of athletic shoes and high-tech textiles.

Success: The Accelerator funding led to the launch of a startup, Voxel8, which licensed the core technology developed under this program. The company raised $12M in Series A funding; was named a Gold Winner of the 2014 MassChallenge; was a 2015 Edison Gold Award Winner; and was named "one of the 9 best ideas from CES 2015" by Fast Company.

Project: Among the initial group of PSE Accelerator fund recipients, this project in the lab of Professor Robert D. Howe led to the development of robotic systems that can grasp a wide variety of items automatically, without calibration or parameter-tuning. The technology has the potential to dramatically improve product handling by reducing costs and increasing speed in e-commerce warehouses.

Success: This Accelerator project led to the launch of RightHand Robotics. The company has developed a family of integrated robotic piece-picking solutions for logistics/fulfillment and raised a Series B financing in December 2018.

Project: Continuing a collaboration between the labs of Professors Michael Aziz and Roy Gordon, PSE Accelerator funding enabled the development of a quinone-based aqueous flow battery that could dramatically reduce the cost of large-scale, stationary electrical energy storage.

Success: The technology was licensed to Green Energy Storage, a company based in Italy.

Project: With PSE Accelerator funding, the lab of Professor Alan Aspuru-Guzik developed a materials discovery platform that leverages advances in quantum chemistry and machine learning to identify advanced materials for a range of high-value markets.

Success: Harvard has licensed the software platform to Kyulux, Inc., a provider of materials for OLED displays.

Project: With support from the PSE Accelerator, the lab of Professor Marko Loncar made pioneering innovations in the nanofabrication and integration of lithium niobate (LiNbO₃) structures. LiNbO₃-based photonic products may address needs in telecommunication, high-performance computing, optical machine learning circuits, and quantum computers.

Success: This Accelerator project led to the launch of a startup, HyperLight Corp, to commercialize integrated photonic chips for data center, datacom, and quantum computing applications. The company has raised a Series A.

Project: PSE Accelerator funding supported Professor Na Li's research group in developing an AI-powered energy/sustainability management platform that incorporates real-time CO₂ signals from the grid into the optimization of energy resources.

Success: A startup, Singularity Energy, launched to commercialize this technology and was selected to participate in the Greentown Labs Bold Ideas Challenge in 2018.

Project: Researchers led by Professor Federico Capasso developed metalens technology—flat optics on a chip—that is poised to enable new types of ultracompact devices for imaging, 3D sensing, AR/VR, and more. The PSE Accelerator provided support as the technology approached commercial readiness.

Success: A startup, Metalenz, Inc., licensed a portfolio of metalens technology from Harvard. The company announced $10M in funding in February 2021.