Eight promising entrepreneurial businesses introduced to Yale community

Student entrepreneurs selected as Summer Fellows at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute gathered in the Maurice R. Greenberg Conference Center June 5 to present their ideas to a gathering of investors, mentors and university representatives.
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Casper Daugaard ’13 pitches his venture, Spylight, to the audience at the Greenberg Center.

Student entrepreneurs selected as Summer Fellows at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute gathered in the Maurice R. Greenberg Conference Center June 5 to present their ideas to a gathering of investors, mentors and university representatives.

The reception for the fellowship — YEI’s seventh such event— is the first time the budding entrepreneurs pitch their business ventures to an audience and have the opportunity to begin the networking that’s essential to getting great ideas off the ground. YEI is a university department that supports the efforts of students and undergraduates to launch successful, scalable ventures.

Each summer it hosts the 10-week YEI Summer Fellowship that provides up to $20,000 for chosen student venture teams as well as experienced mentors, a dynamic workspace, workshops with leading entrepreneurs and networking opportunities.

The eight teams chosen by YEI this year are “some of the most impressive we’ve had to date,” said Alena Gribskov, program director of YEI.

The companies selected and their founders are:

Spylight has created a platform that allows TV viewers to identify and purchase products that are being worn or used by celebrities in their favorite shows. Casper Daugaard (YC ‘13), Aly Moore (YC ’14)


Isoplexis has developed a technology for cellular fingerprinting — using a microchip to measure protein secretions at the single-cell level in order to get an accurate picture of immune response. The Isoplexis venture is jointly supported by YEI and Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research, which works with faculty to identify inventions with commercial potential, handles patenting and licensing activities and expands Yale’s interaction with the private sector. Kara Brower (YC ‘13), Sean Mackay (SOM ‘14)


Black Startup is a crowdfunding site that supports ideas, projects, and causes that positively impact the African-American community. Elgin Tucker (FES ’14), Nathan Fleming, Bola Adewumi

TummyZen has designed a new antacid using patented Yale research that will better treat acid reflux in infants, children, and adults. Hasan Ansari (SOM ‘14), Srikar Prasad (SOM ‘14), Fanni Li (SOM ‘14), Yulia Khvan (SOM ‘14)

Truly Protect enables gaming and other software providers to prevent theft by encrypting the game code and decrypting it inside the CPU. Dor Zaidenberg (SOM ‘13)

LaunchSite leverages the power of crowdsourcing to connect people who need websites with web developers. Daniel Qu (YC ‘13), Brendan Ross (YC ‘13), Noah Gray (YC ‘13), Marcus Moretti (YC ‘13)

Dextro offers a proprietary algorithm that allows computers to recognize image data. David Luan (YC ‘14), Sanchit Arora, Rory Timar

Lab Candy hopes to get middle school girls excited about science by providing them with more fashionable lab goggles and coats. Olivia Pavco-Giaccia (YC ‘16), May Li Lynch

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