Cornell Tech Announces Startup Awards

Dean Dan Huttenlocher announced the Cornell Tech Startup Awards to students in the studio on Tuesday evening. The awards are made possible thanks to a $200,000 grant from the Blackstone Foundation.

Student startup companies will compete for up to five $40,000 investments of pre-seed funding and one year of free co-working space in Midtown Manhattan.

The awards are designed for student companies launched during Startup Studio that want to continue past graduation, but aren’t quite ready to seek seed funding.

The winning companies will be selected by a panel of people from Cornell Tech and the surrounding New York tech community in the final Studio Sprint of the semester in early May.

“This is one of these things where a bunch of stars aligned,” Huttenlocher told the students. “This is something we’ve been wanting to do for a while and the support from Blackstone has helped us kick this off.”

Cornell Tech was selected as one of 20 recipients of the Innovation Grant from Blackstone Charitable Foundation.

Blackstone Foundation Program Director Tony Tolentino addressed the students, faculty and staff present in the Studio for the announcement. “You guys are doing great things here and we’re really excited at the foundation to see what you’ll create and who will get the awards.”

“Blackstone does not take a stake in anything, this is a charitable endeavor for us,” Tolentino clarified. “We’re really interested in just supporting the next generation.”