Thirty-three student teams have been selected to participate in the 18th annual cohort of eLab, Cornell’s premier student startup accelerator. This year’s eLab cohort brings together Cornell student founders who are developing ventures across many industries and disciplines, all with the goal of building companies they can operate full-time beyond graduation.
Backed by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, Student Agencies Inc. and the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, eLab is designed for students with serious entrepreneurial ambitions. The program combines academic coursework with the realities of building a company, giving student founders a strong foundation for entrepreneurial success beyond the Ithaca campus.
Throughout the program, eLab participants receive personalized instruction from Cornell entrepreneurship faculty and guidance from advisors across the Cornell network. Many eLab alumni give back as volunteer mentors, serving on its advisory board to pay their experience forward to newer cohorts of eLab students. With more than 50 experienced entrepreneurs advising, participants can mine a treasure trove of judgment and insight from mentors who have survived their own entrepreneurial journey. Fourteen of the teams in the cohort will be invited to continue with eLab in the spring term; these teams become eligible for $5,000 in funding to help grow their company and will travel across the country to pitch in March.
“I want the structure and guidance to build a sustainable business step by step, while learning from the expertise available across the Cornell network. Just as importantly, I want to build a strong community of fellow builders and innovators who can challenge my thinking, share feedback, and grow alongside me throughout the process,” said Valeria Ortiz, MBA ’27, founder of Nüey.
For the newest cohort, that work is already underway. After a semester of refining their strategies and developing their businesses, all 33 eLab teams will pitch their ventures in New York City on November 5 during the Cornell Entrepreneurship Showcase: Student Pitches and Venture Panel at Cornell Tech. The event will give student founders an opportunity to showcase their progress and connect with members of Cornell’s entrepreneurial community in the city. Registration for this event is open to alumni, entrepreneurs, investors, and friends of the program.
The NYC showcase is the first of several opportunities for the cohort to present their ventures publicly. Teams will also pitch in San Francisco on March 25 and again in Ithaca on April 22, where they will highlight the progress and traction they have made.
“There is a reason we call it eLab: it is the lab where Cornell’s most ambitious students come to experiment, build, and turn conviction into companies, said Gregory Ray, PhD ‘14, the Don & Margi Berens Professor of Entrepreneurship at the SC Johnson College of Business. “Welcoming 33 new student founded ventures into this cohort is one of the great joys of my role at Cornell. Getting to know these founders is a preview of why Cornell just rose to #4 in PitchBook’s 2026 rankings for entrepreneurship: when we give exceptional people a real place to build, they build things that matter”.
The teams selected for the 2026-27 eLab cohort are:
- Aër, Shirin Ghorbani ’28, Eva Ho ’28
- Anvil, Paul Trusov ’29
- Asian Aunties, Eunice Lee ’27
- Better Tales, Paulina Endara Pallasco PhD ’27
- CommuniCare, Samhita Korukonda ’27, Yuvna Musuku ’27, Ralph Ho ’27
- CONTEXTOS, Hadi Saif ’28
- Dalia, Eashan Vagish ’27
- Diwan Coffee, Rayaan Lodi ’28, Noor Sattar ’27
- DRVN, Howard Zheng ’28
- ekimul, Sheng Cui ’27
- Evergreen Bites, Darian Pan ’28
- Fandia, Alvin Fang ’27, Sheng Cui ’27, Taikary Jiang ’27, Michael Zhong ’27
- FirmAtlas, Peter Karacs MPS-RE ’28
- Gild, Adriana Burnett, MPS ’27, Sarah Van Horn, MPS ’27
- Global Playground, Danish Hussain Yar ’28, Yalda Hussain Yar ’28
- HailIQ, Noel Blackwell ’28
- IronThreads, Daniel Aranda ’29, Charlie De Sena ’30
- ItsLife, Xuehao Zang PhD ’29
- Mavin’s Landing, Matthew Morris, MBA ’27
- Memento, Grace Chen ’28, Matias Riveros-Amado ’29, Isabella Salducco ’28
- Mino, Hoan Le, MBA ’27, Min Namkoong, MBA ’27
- Nüey, Valeria Ortiz MBA ’27
- Project EIA, Tim Wurst, MBA ’27
- Redtail Studios, Santiago Fernandez, MBA ’27, Alejandro Cercio, MBA ’27, Mauricio SIlba, MBA ’27, Amritha Parimala, MBA ’27
- Reharmonize, Ethan Tai ’29
- Silo Labs, Yaron Klein, MBA ’27, Sahil Desai, PhD ’27,
- STRIDE RUNNING COMPANY, Brooke Wilcox ’28, Kate Stiens ’27
- Syndeo, Jackson Hutchison ’29
- Thrive Time, Justin Bertelsen, MBA ’27
- Throttle, Jacob Berko M.Eng. ’26
- Vitamin VVV, Viki Ding ’29
- Zana, Ezana Kavuma ’28
- Zybit, Jad Alsouss ’29, Asad Rizvi ’29, Gabe Meredith ’29