Cornell Tech Startup Spinout Activity Report

StartupSpinout
ActvityReport 2 0 1 6
An Overview
Cornell Tech oﬃcially launched 3 years ago, and since
then the number of startups that were formed at
Cornell Tech and spun out have grown at a rapid
pace. This report provides a detailed view into
Cornell Tech’s spinout activity and how the campus
is transforming universities’ role in the creation of
startup companies.
29
Companies
formed and spun
out between
January 1st 2014 -
August 1st 2016
and over 100
employees built
these startups
Founders
62
12 of pre-seed – seed
funding raised in
less than 3 years
Million Dollars
93
are headquartered
in NYC, while 7%
are headquartered
in San Francisco
Percent

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Startups per Year
The rate of startups formed at Cornell Tech is
growing rapidly. Between 2014 and 2015, the total
number of active spinouts increased more than 5
times and in 2016 we have already seen an increase
greater than 2 times the number of startups in 2015.
The graph below shows the growth of startups at
Cornell Tech.
2014 2015 2016
8
0
16
24
32 Spinout Companies
21 Companies
Currently Active
29 Total number of spinouts
17 spinouts formed
in 2016 alone

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Spinouts by Program
There are several hubs at Cornell Tech where
startups are formed, and those founders include
master’s students, PhDs, faculty, postdocs, and
alumni. The number of startups being formed by
Runway Postdocs and Startup Studio teams are
increasing at an accelerated rate. Between 2015 and
2016, the number of Runway Postdoc spinouts have
increased 150% and Startup Studio spinouts have
increased by 20%. Of the total startups formed, we
have seen the most startup activity come from the
Runway Postdoc program and Startup Studio,
followed by alumni.
Alumni: Recent Cornell Tech graduates
Studio: Masters students (MBA, CS, LLM)
Runway: Postdocs that are commercializing deep tech
2
4
6
8 Spinouts
2014 2015 2016
Year

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Working Across Industries
There are 7 focus areas that have
a racted more than $1 million in
funding and are generating the most
jobs—these are areas where more than
10 people per team are actively
working to build companies. These
focus areas are Wellness, IoT, Big Data,
Computer Vision, applications focused
on parents, Machine Learning, and
Mobile technology.
Wellness
IoT
Big Data
Computer Vision
Parents
Machine learning
Mobile
Developer platform
Research
Finance
Urban Development
Ecommerce
Marketplace
Health
Food
Communication
Productivity
Education
Media
Robotics
Pets
Sports
Recruitment
Bots
Fashion
Manufacturing
VR/AR
Dollars raised 0 1m 2m 3m 4m 5m 6m 7m 8m 9m 10m
People hired 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40
People hired
Dollars raised

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Building a Community of Founders
Cornell Tech is dedicated to fostering pioneering
leaders of the digital age, and one way we are keeping
this promise is through a campus culture that
produces successful startup founders. Since 2014, 62
startup founders emerged from Cornell Tech. At this
rate, Cornell Tech is on track to building an
inﬂuential and tightly connected community of
founders that will build the next wave of
transformational startup companies in New York
City.
2014
2015
2016
Pre-existing Founder
New Founder

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Diﬀerent Types of Founders
The founding teams of Cornell Tech spinouts ranged
from solo (1) founders to four (4) founders. Most of
the spinout teams are founded by 2 co-founders,
while teams that are founded by 3 people raised the
most money from angels and venture capitalists.
Majority of the teams founded by solo founders are
from the Runway Postdoc program. The Runway
Postdoc program has been focused on identifying
postdocs who have IP that can be commercialized.
Leaders of Runway and entrepreneurship at Cornell
Tech are currently exploring opportunities for
Runway postdocs to organically build relationships
with potential co-founders while their companies are
incubated on campus. Below is the breakdown of
Cornell Tech teams by number of founders and
funding.
4
8
12
16 Teams
Number of Founders per Team
1 2 3 4
Alumni
Studio
Runway

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Strong Teams Make a Diﬀerence
The optimal founding team sizes from Cornell Tech
have been teams with 2 – 3 co-founders. On average,
solo founders raise slightly more capital than teams
with 2 founders; however, on average solo founders
have to recruit 3 new employees in the early days,
which has a higher opportunity cost (i.e. cost of
equity and/or capital ) than teams with 2 founders
that recruit one new person. On average, teams
founded by 3 people raise signiﬁcantly more capital
than any other team size and only recruit an average
of 2 additional people to work on the company in the
early days. Founding team sizes of 4 people
underperform in fundraising and on average still
require an additional person to join the team.
$300k1
$600k2
$900k3
Raised $1.2m4 People Hired
Number of Founders per Team
1 2 3 4
Average People Recuited
Money Raised since Aug.

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29 Companies Raised Over $12 Million
Over the past two years, the average pre-seed – seed
round size for Cornell Tech startups has increased
rapidly. We saw a 1.2x increase from 2014 – 2015 and a
3.3x increase from 2015 – 2016. In 2016, the average
funding for a Cornell Tech pre-seed – seed stage
spinout was $629k. We have seen majority of the
funding for these companies come from family,
friends, angels, and Cornell Tech. These companies
are still very early in their history—the oldest
startups were founded just two years ago—and we
expect the average funding per company to continue
to increase over time.
4
2
6
10
14
8
12
16 Teams
0
100k
100k
500k
500k
1m
1m
10m
Total Investment
Alumni
Studio
Runway

StartupSpinout
Key Learnings
Just 3 years into building a spinout culture at
Cornell Tech, we have begun to learn what is
working and what isn’t working. The campus
and spinout culture are constantly evolving, and
it is becoming a reliable destination for the
development and growth of startup activity in
New York City. We regularly reﬂect on our key
learnings, and use those learnings to improve our
startup culture. Below are some key insights:
The number of founders at Cornell Tech is
growing rapidly, and as a result there is an active
community of alumni building startups. As the
alumni community continues to grow, Cornell
Tech will see greater demand for co-working
space, events, and resources.
Growing community of
startup founders at
Cornell Tech
While at Cornell Tech and upon immediate
spinout, startups are raising the most capital
from family, friends, founders, and non-
institutional angel investors. As we continue to
build support for spinouts, we are prioritizing
opportunities to get our teams exposed to non-
institutional angel investors, and organizing
opportunities for startup founders’ networks to
see external validation of their success.
Origins of initial funding
are family, friends,
former co-workers,
founders, angel investors,
and Cornell Tech

StartupSpinout
Key Learnings
While at Cornell Tech and upon immediate
spinout, startups are raising the most capital
from family, friends, founders, and non-
institutional angel investors. As we continue to
build support for spinouts, we are prioritizing
opportunities to get our teams exposed to non-
institutional angel investors, and organizing
opportunities for startup founders’ networks to
see external validation of their success.
Optimal team size is 2–3
founders
The most active hubs of startup formation and
development at Cornell Tech are the Runway
Postdoc Program, Startup Studio spinouts, and
alumni. We have learned that there are resources
in each of those hubs that are materially
valuable to the other hubs. To achieve be er
collaboration, influence shared learning, and
prepare to operate at greater scale, Cornell Tech
plans to consolidate resources across the three
hubs.
Our first step is to hire a Director of Runway and
Spinouts. The new director will not only run the
Runway Postdocs Program, but also organize
spinout clinics and resources that all startup
founders can benefit from while at Cornell Tech.
Consolidation of
on-campus startup
resources

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Key Learnings
Institutional seed and Series A investors
continue to monitor Cornell Tech startups, and a
few have funded the fastest growing seed stage
spinouts. Because many of Cornell Tech’s startup
are not yet at the stage for later stage funding,
we have developed an investor brief—the brief
highlights the recent startup spinouts—that is
sent to top institution investors and angels that
are in the Cornell Tech network. We have seen a
positive response, several of those investors
have proactively reached out to our teams to
discuss opportunities to invest and add value.
Positive response from
institutional seed
investors

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This Year’s Studio & Postdoc Spinouts
Startup Studio
www.bowtie.ai
A plug and play chatbot solution for any
business, on any platform. We want to do for
bots what squarespace did for websites.
Runway Postdoc
www.cityhive.net
A software engine of the on-demand
economy. City Hive is a true enabler of
efficient e-commerce for the benefit of
producers, merchants, and consumers alike.
Runway PostdocCode Ocean accelerates innovation by
making state-of-the art scientific research
accessible and useful.
Startup Studio
www.gitlinks.com
Helps organizations manage and monitor
their open source software usage and assists
them with making the best product decisions.
Runway Postdoc
www.innovatively.co
Makes sense of public data to deliver
comprehensive information on markets,
companies and products in the healthcare
and life sciences industries.

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Runway Postdoc
www.maalka.com
Enables cities, corporations, utilities and
building owners to launch and manage
successful sustainability initiatives.
Runway Postdoc
www.nanit.com
Nanit is revolutionizing the way babies sleep
with machine learning algorithms and
advanced computer vision technology.
Startup Studio
www.phylosofy.com
A paper book on which any digital content
can be viewed using our cross-platform
mixed reality software.
Runway PostdocHelps patients with motor-related diseases,
like Parkinson’s, Arthritis and Multiple
Sclerosis.
Runway Postdoc
www.peachylabs.com
PeachyLabs is building a computer vision
system that can fully describe the food in an
image, including ingredients, dish name,
nutritional data, cuisine and flavor profile.

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Startup Studio
www.robotc.io
RoboTC is a universal brain which instantly
gives any robot intelligence.
Runway Postdoc
www.shade.io
Developing a groundbreaking UV radiation
monitoring system for people suffering from
lupus.
Startup StudioA data platform for autism education.
Startup Studio
www.uruvideo.com
Uses computer vision to create a whole new
(and entirely unobtrusive) ad spot inside your
videos.

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This Year’s Alumni Startups
Alumni
www.bambify.com
Bambify empowers apparel brands and
entrepreneurs to launch an idea from one
platform.
Alumni
www.leavenworthclothing.com
Bringing a new option in shirts for men as
we've made a shirt knit using silk, cashmere
and cotton with a loose neck and fit.
Alumni
www.turtle.ai
A simple to use project management
software that makes it easy to find and hire
freelancers AND integrate them into existing
teams and projects.

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Startup Culture
Since New York City issued the applied sciences
and engineering challenge in 2010, Cornell Tech
has been on the forefront envisioning and
planning the future of graduate education. Over
the last 4 years, since the selection of Cornell
Tech and the Technion as the institutions to
build a new applied sciences campus in New
York City, Cornell Tech has taken measurable
steps toward pushing the limits on a new
educational pedagogies that a racts world-class
faculty, students, staﬀ, industry leaders, and
practitioners. Revolutionizing graduate
education requires Cornell Tech to
simultaneously execute on a wide range of
opportunities including initiatives such as the
creation of a pre-eminent urban campus on
Roosevelt Island, thought leadership pertaining
to how corporations look to universities for
innovation, and creating burgeoning spinout
culture on the campus.
Cornell Tech is on the forefront of reimagining
an academic environment designed to support
the formation and development of startups on
campus. Today, our economy is placing greater
value on individuals’ ability who can build
so ware and apply their skills in a way that
result in measurable value. We are in a time
when it’s be er to be able to builds things vs.
simply know things. Cornell Tech’s approach to
teaching students and entrepreneurs how to
build is creating a new career path that is
propelling students, faculty, and PhDs into
forming companies, seed funding, and acqui-
hires immediately following their time at Cornell
Tech. At Cornell Tech’s current pace of
innovation, the campus is on its way to becoming
the largest incubator in the world.
Currently, there are two programs at Cornell
Tech that are responsible for the majority of
startups formed on the campus. Those programs
are Runway Postdocs and Startup Studio.

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Startup Focused Programs
The Runway Startup Postdoc Program is part
business school, part research institution, and
part startup incubator. Based at the Jacobs
Technion-Cornell Institute, Runway ushers
recent PhDs in digital technology fields through
a paradigm shi — from an academic mindset to
an entrepreneurial outlook.
Startup Postdocs arrive with ideas for unproven
products and markets that require time and
specialized guidance to develop. These startups
demand more than a few months to launch. They
need a bit of a “runway.” That’s why our program
lasts 12–24 months and incorporates academic
and business mentorship.
Runway provides an impressive package valued
at $150,000 that includes a salary, research
budget, housing allowance, space and more. In
addition, the Startup Postdoc receives significant
benefits and perks and corporate support valued
at $320,000.
This class helps students develop their ability to
imagine, recognize, develop, and improve startup
ideas. Students invent and explore thousands of
startup ideas, and help each other evaluate and
improve those ideas. By the end of Startup Ideas,
students self-organize into co-founding teams
around specific startup ideas that they will
execute on in Startup Studio the following
semester.
Runway Postdoc Startup Ideas

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Startup Focused Programs
Students, develop their ideas, products, and
pitches, learn to create and tell a compelling
startup story, build and demo a prototype, and
test their product with users. Some teams go on
to cofound these startups a er graduation.
Cornell Tech’s integrated curriculum continues
to evolve and push the boundaries of academia’s
role in startup creation and commercialization of
new technologies. As an example, The Foundry
at Cornell Tech, the campus’s internal product
development team, actively builds innovative
technology that is used in the classroom by
students to bolster the creation of new ideas.
Unicornucopia, the latest technology built by
The Foundry for the classroom, has been
responsible for the creation of over 1,000 ideas
and inspirations that led to startups formed on
campus through Startup Studio. A new version
of the Unicornucopia is currently being used by
students at Cornell Tech, and we expect over
3,000 new ideas to be created during the Fall 2016
semester. Beyond the classroom, The Foundry
has worked with several spinouts on product
development and design.
Startup Studio Continued growth

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Spinout Support Suite
The Spinout Clinic helps transition Cornell Tech
founders out of the academic environment and
into the startup community. During the clinic,
founders gain access to ready-to-use resources
that help founders navigate current spinout
decisions. Each session consists of a round table
discussion that dives deep into founders’ real-
time concerns and decisions. The round table
discussions are followed by forward progress
sessions, where practitioners that have very
speciﬁc experience are invited to work with the
teams one-on-one to execute next steps that
include legal entity formation, Startup Award
application preparation, fundraising, media
training, and more. Five of the seventeen 2015
spinouts found their lawyer at the Spinout Clinic
and eight teams learned how to structure their
seed rounds.
Spinout Clinic
The Spinout Open House brings together and
empowers an enthusiastic community of angel
investors to make early investments in the
institution’s highest potential teams. This
informal angel network is growing and prime to
make pre-seed investments in high-potential
student teams. In Nov. of 2015, we organized a
group of 60+ investors to Cornell Tech’s co-
working space in the New York Times building to
support growing group of startup spinouts. Just
two months a er the ﬁrst Spinout Open House,
two of the participating teams have received
investment commitments from angel investors
who a ended the event.
Spinout Open House

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Spinout Support Suite
Startup Awards supports post-graduate startup
opportunities that are too early for seed funding
and unable to be self-funded. At Cornell Tech,
entrepreneurs are trained to view the world
through an entrepreneurial lens and to exercise
entrepreneurial behavior: forming teams and
building products that address opportunities in
the commercial world. However, it takes time for
students to translate their entrepreneurial
experiments into new commercial ventures, thus
they are o en too early to a ract seed
investments. This common scenario creates a
“gap” between the post-academic environment
and teams’ investment readiness. For teams that
are not financially independent—which are most
students—the cost and risk of building a startup
during the gap period deters an entrepreneurial
career and leaves potentially valuable
opportunities unrealized. For this reason, Cornell
Tech offers startup awards.
This award allows any Cornell Tech students or
alum, regardless of economic status, to directly
pursue an entrepreneurial career a er
graduation. In addition to the cash award, we
offer free, dedicated Cornell Tech co-working
space in the New York Times Building. Six of the
seventeen spinout teams earned a Startup
Award.
Startup Awards

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Just Ge ing Started
We are in the earliest days of building a
transformational institution. These early signs
of spinout success have been produced during a
period where only 100s of students and 100s
faculty/staﬀ have ventured out to explore the
possibility of a university being intimately
involved in startup idea generation, formation,
and spinout. We are expecting 10x growth ahead
of us, and that growth will have an
extraordinary impact on Cornell Tech’s spinout
activity and culture. We look forward to building
Cornell Tech spinout capacity—a process that
builds on key learnings year a er year—and
a racting the very best entrepreneurs to drive
innovation in the digital economy!

StartupSpinout
Contact Us
If you are interested in learning more about Cornell Tech startup spinout activity
or would like to get involved, then contact Aaron Holiday at ah643@cornell.edu.ah643@cornell.edu

Cornell Tech Startup Spinout Activity Report

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