Ventures
Ventures
Startups, spinouts, licensing, and commercialization from the Duke ecosystem.
Ventures
View MoreDuke alum trains next generation of founders to learn from failure
Upswing co-founder and CEO Melvin Hines, a Duke JD/MBA alum, returned to campus to let Executive MBA students dissect a case study of his edtech startup's toughest choices, sharing lessons on funding, hiring, and building a company without personal wealth.
Ventures
View MoreDuke engineer prototyped a no-remove menstrual cup on a used 3D printer for 10,000 women in Uganda
Hannah Wilen (Pratt '20, Fuqua '22) co-founded Capd Period and bootstrapped a menstrual cup designed to be emptied without removal, winning the 2023 Westly Prize's $40,000 award earmarked for distributing 10,000 cups in Uganda.
Ventures
View MoreDuke brothers' sports app hits 1 million daily users without spending a dollar on ads
John Antonelli, a 2023 Duke computer science graduate and participant in Duke's Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurs program, co-founded the fan-engagement app Real with his brothers. The platform peaked at 1 million daily active users during Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals, capping growth from 9,000 monthly users in late 2021.
Ventures
View MoreHow a Duke alum is using sensors and AI to protect fish farmers from toxic water
Duke class of 2023 alum Snehal Verma co-founded NatureDots in December 2019 to help fish farmers combat climate-driven water quality losses using sensor hardware and machine learning; the venture now has a 22-person team and more than 20 international awards.
Ventures
View MoreDuke researchers connect aging with GLP-1 drug development
A May 20 conversation between Duke faculty researcher Rana Gupta and Dean Mary Klotman highlights the university's growing effort to link metabolic aging research with next-generation GLP-1 therapies, including collaborations with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
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