Cornell’s student startup accelerator, eLab, is proud to announce the 33 student teams selected for its Fall 2025 cohort! The program accepts student founders from any field of study across Cornell’s Ithaca campus and readies them to launch their businesses. This year, eLab welcomes its 17th cohort and a new program director.
Established in 2008 by the Student Agencies Foundation and Entrepreneurship at Cornell, the program puts teams through intensive entrepreneurship “boot camps.” Students conduct customer discovery interviews, fine-tune their business plans, and connect with a network of successful Cornell alumni, all while earning academic credit from the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. In the Spring, top-performing teams receive a $5,000 investment into their incorporated business and funding for continued customer discovery.
“Since taking on the program, the instructor team has worked with 193 Cornell University-led teams looking at the viability of launching a startup,” says Ken Rother, eLab’s outgoing managing director. “Spoiler alert: many of them did.”
Rother has played a key role in the program’s success. Under his leadership, eLab grew to include annual events in New York City and San Francisco, giving students the opportunity to pitch their businesses to venture capitalists, investors, alumni and friends of Cornell. Beyond events, Rother also expanded the program’s mentorship network and increased team stipends. After 10 years of running the program, Rother is handing off the torch to Gregory Ray, PhD ‘14, the Don & Margi Berens Professor of Entrepreneurship at the SC Johnson College of Business.
Ray also leads the Green Technology Innovation Fellows and the Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellows, both of which are offered by the SC Johnson College of Business. Both programs aim to cultivate the next generation of science leaders. Ray also co-directs the Johnson Summer Startup Accelerator alongside Rother – a 10-week summer intensive that enables students to continue growing their startups in the summer and build off the momentum that they generated in the spring semester.
“I’m deeply grateful to Ken Rother for his years of leadership, mentorship, and stewardship of eLab. The success of so many eLab alumni companies is a direct reflection of the strong foundation he helped build,” said Ray. “If you speak to past participants, you will quickly appreciate the impact that an eLab Director can have on a student.”
Several eLab alumni give back to the program as volunteer mentors on the eLab advisory board. Over 40 seasoned entrepreneurs share advice and work one-on-one with students to help shape their business ideas. Mentorship also provides student founders with experience working with a board of advisers – invaluable for running a startup after the program concludes.
“I hope to pressure-test FYBRE with the help of eLab’s immense network of expert operators as we refine our go-to-market strategy, build credible traction and raise outside investment,” said Bren Bodin, MBA ’26 founder of FYBRE, one of this year’s teams.
eLab’s newest cohort will pitch their business ideas after a semester of refining their strategies in New York City on October 30th during the Cornell Entrepreneurship Showcase: Student Pitches and Venture Panel. Registration for this event is open to alumni, entrepreneurs, investors, and friends of the program.
The teams selected for the 2025-26 eLab cohort are:
- 4 for 4, Kate Barclay ’26, Sia Chitnis ’25, Trisha Saini ’26, Jesse Koppel ’26
- AgPilot, Andrew James ’26
- Airhouse, Boris Bialer ’26
- Arqen.AI, Jacob Michael Potoczak, MBA ’26
- Balkan Sauce, Mohammad Alrahmah ’27
- Binary Holographics Corporations, HP Park ’28
- Bring the Buzz Over, Melissa Chowdhury ’28
- Cervicheck, George Zeng ’27, Charlotte Wu ’28
- Clique, Pragun Sharma ’28
- Eduni, Noah Wilson ’26, Jasper Tripp ’27
- FYBRE, Bren Bodin, MBA ’26
- GO2, Christopher A. Archer, MBA ’26
- GrannyGains, Matthew Kahn ’26
- GymPoint, Ezana Kavuma ’28
- Heer, Gurkaran Ahuja ’26
- HippoFlo, Nancy Chen ’27
- Katha, Niko Tsavekou ’27
- LifeQuest, Tyler Hein, MBA ’26
- MedSimAI, Yann Hicke, PhD ’27
- Mode, Matthew Lew ’26, Andrew Chiu ’26, Kyle Chan ’27, Spenser Wu ’26
- Novl, Orazio Petito ’27, Ryaan Aqid ‘27
- PartumCare Now, Carmyn Polk, MBA ’26
- Paygent, Ava Poole ’27
- Physis, Elissa Benham ’26
- PortNexus AI, Zijian Xu ’26, Xibei Xie ’26
- Power Crunch, Waritsara Khongkomolsakul, PhD ’27
- RepaintWiz, Tanush Korgaokar, MPS ’25, Tomas Šiurna, MPS ’26, Kedar Mhetre, MEM ’26, Sarvadnya Mahajan, MEM ’26
- Rootulu, Dillon Gordon ’26
- Scoobii!, Jiaxi (Cici) Wang, MEng BME ’26
- Testlift, Muhammad Hisham ’27
- The Period Box, Zoe Schulte, MBA ’26
- VigilantAI, Jay Patel ’26
- Wiha.Ai, Lydia Yilekal ’26
