Pitching in Style: Tsai CITY’s Fall 2023 Accelerator Pitch-Off and Alumni Mixer
On Friday, November 17th, over two hundred students, alumni, and community members gathered at Tsai CITY to celebrate the accomplishments of the Fall 2023 Accelerator teams in their biannual pitch-off event. Through the Accelerator program, the ten teams in this semester’s cohort have spent the last two months advancing their venture through grant funding and tailored mentorship opportunities with industry experts. Now, the teams have a chance to share their progress and practice the art of pitching at the end-of-semester pitch-off.
From demystifying health data to celebrating Chinese literature online, this semester’s Accelerator teams offer a diverse representation of Yale’s innovation and entrepreneurial community across industries and disciplines. Starting with Grinning Cat Productions, each team gave a quick three-minute presentation outlining their goals and future vision for their endeavor, followed by a lively audience Q&A. Many teams focused on the positive potential for personalized data platforms, such as lucid.care and WealthMeUp, two ventures respectively aimed at improving mental health care and financial literacy for underserved populations. Some teams, like Opportunify, used the pitch-off platform to showcase their growth with partner institutions like the London Business School; others took the opportunity to publicize a rebrand, like UniHealth (formerly indeHealth), who have found success working with GoodRx to improve care within the New York university health systems.
Audience Choice Awards
The pitch-off culminated in Tsai CITY’s first-ever Audience Choice Awards, in which the audience voted on the spot for their favorite pitches of the day. The two winning teams receiving $1,000 each in prize money are below:
Guideli
Oyebade Adepegba (SOM '24), Daniel Jayeoba
Guideli is solving the frustration immigrants face in navigating complex immigration processes and settlement hurdles in their new countries.
Matcha Scrubs
MiChaela Barker (SOM '24)
Matcha Scrubs is an inclusive scrub cap line that creates satin-lined scrub caps to protect all hair textures while celebrating cultural hairstyles and backgrounds in the healthcare world.
Beyond the Pitch-Off
Overall, the pitch-off event offered these young entrepreneurs the chance to refine their organizational pitch and engage with investors from the broader Yale alumni community, including Turner MIINT and Yale SOM’s Meng Impact Investment Fund. As the Accelerator program comes to a close for the season, we at Tsai CITY hope to see these ventures continue to grow in the Yale community and beyond through the insights and connections they have gained from the program.
To learn more or get involved with these exciting new ventures, check out the descriptions of the final Accelerator teams below:
Grinning Cat Productions
Luis Gonzalez (YC '23), Daniel Blokh (YC '24), Jonas Kilga (YC '23)
Grinning Cat Productions aims to independently produce and distribute low-budget, high-concept documentary films showcasing underseen corners of the world in aesthetically innovative ways.
UniHealth (formerly indeHealth)
Tsikata Apenyo (SOM '24)
UniHealth is making healthcare easier to access and understand for college students.
lucid.care
Clara Guo (MED '24), Aleksandra Galaszewicz (SOM '24)
Lucid.care bridges the patient-provider "data gap" by bringing data to clinical encounters and using AI-enabled predictions to personalize care.
Opportunify
Jacopo Lazzarin (SOM '24), Rhys Hamilton-Davies (SOM '24)
Automated job platform specifically designed for business school students.
Rat Sound Productions
Zoe Larkin (YC '24), Ella Attell (YC '24)
Rat Sound Productions is a funny, feminist-forward production company that produces Gen-Z entertainment content.
WealthMeUp
Feli Oikonomopoulou (SOM '24)
Female-first app offering personalized financial education.
Win Number
Nicole Morrison (SOM '25)
Win Number combines advanced analytics and persuasion science to help progressive campaigns win.
Xiao Ming's Right Brain
Xinning Shao (YC '25)
Xiao Ming's Right Brain revitalizes the Chinese digital literary space by creating fun, inclusive, and accessible Chinese-language literature YouTube videos.
Click here to learn more about the Venture Development Programs at Tsai CITY.