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| CORE SWARTZ CENTER EVENTS, PROGRAM DEADLINES & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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CMU Lab To Market Keynote Speakers Announced!
We are excited to announce two amazing keynote speakers for CMU Lab To Market Pittsburgh!
Andrew Moore, Founder & CEO, Lovelace AI, will be the opening keynote and Sujal Shah, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Juvia Group, will be the closing keynote speaker.
Lab to Market is a curated gathering of investors for an exclusive look at Carnegie Mellon University’s most promising research-driven startups. This day-long event spotlights breakthrough ventures emerging from CMU labs, including those led by CMU faculty, PhDs and postdocs—advancing the frontier in AI, robotics, cybersecurity, healthcare, and beyond.
This event is part of StartUP PGH 2026. Check out the StartUP PGH website for more information about the week-long event being put on by fifteen regional partners.
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| CMU SPARK Keynote Speaker Announced!
SPARK 2026 will open with a keynote from Boris Sofman, Co-Founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics and former leader at Waymo and Anki. Boris will share lessons from building ambitious robotics and autonomy companies and offer students a firsthand look at what it takes to create and scale frontier technology.
CMU SPARK 2026 is a high-energy evening connecting Carnegie Mellon students with startups and emerging companies hiring across technology, design, product and business.
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| Shelfmark Raises $3.5M to Scale Physical AI and
Hire in Pittsburgh
Uptown-based physical AI company Shelfmark raised a $3.5 million seed round, with plans to scale local hiring. Armory Square Ventures, based in New York, alongside Grand Ventures, Hyde Park Angels, Argon Ventures and Cultivation Capital led the recent round
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| HeadStrait Labs Secures $350K Investment from Richard King Mellon Foundation
HeadStrait Labs, a medical technology company redefining emergency transportation for traumatic brain, head, neck and spine injuries, has officially announced a $350K lead investment from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. The investment will support manufacturing readiness, continued product development and regional partnerships in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties with EMS agencies, hospitals, rural health providers, athletics programs and senior living communities.
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| Help CMU Startup LaunchProd with a Product Idea.
Submit Your Idea by August 7 ~ Win Swartz Center Swag!
LaunchProd, a Swartz Center startup, is partnering with The Movie List Podcast (a weekly pop culture and film podcast) to develop its first fan based product. The founders are looking for product ideas and suggestions that align with the theme of the Podcast and that would appeal to their audience.
Check out The Movie List Podcast website and submit your idea by August 7th to: support@launchprod.com.
The winner will be announced on August 10th and will receive Swartz Center swag and an early copy of the product.
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STARTUP JOB OPPORTUNITIES
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Cruitical is an AI-native hiring platform built by CMU grads Shubham and Yash (Heinz '25) that replaces resumes and low-signal screens with deeply enriched candidate profiles and virtual work trials that showcase how people actually think, work, and use AI.
We're working with startups hiring for Applied AI, ML Research, Forward Deployed, GTM Engineering roles and everything in between. One profile, and we match you as new roles open up.
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CMU Startup Opportunity for Quantitative Marketing Platform
Maximus is a quantitative marketing platform that helps businesses grow. It turns market signals into actions through a patented, closed-loop system. Founded by a Tepper '22 alumnus, the team is building its founding team and looking for their first technical hire: someone strong in data science, machine learning or software engineering who wants real ownership, early equity and the chance to shape a product from the ground up alongside the founder. The position is full-time or part-time/remote.
Apply at maximus.software/work-with-us or reach out at cguzzi@maximus.software.
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Join us on Tuesday, August 25!
Nicole Granath, a former climate tech founder now at Fifty Years, will share hard-won insights on choosing the right idea and building a deep tech startup as we race toward AGI: what becomes exponentially more valuable on that path (and what becomes worthless), the physical constraints that will define our thriving future, and why most AI startups are building the wrong thing.
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CMU Students! Join us on Friday, August 28
The Swartz Center is excited to invite all CMU students to this year's Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, a one-day glimpse into entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University and around Pittsburgh. Join us on Friday, August 28 to learn more about what CMU has to offer regarding entrepreneurship, funding and programming, while enjoying snacks, networking and a keynote speaker.
View the full schedule.
All registrants will receive a Swartz Center t-shirt!
Co-sponsored by the Carnegie Mellon Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Graduate Entrepreneurship Club, Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Association, Scottie Ventures, ScottyLabs and Sigma Eta Pi.
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|  | Brandon Rosas (TPR 2010)
Founder and Managing Partner, FOHRT Consulting
| |  | Patrick Colletti
Adjunct Professor, Tepper School of Business
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From Startup to Scale-Up:
The Headcount Thresholds That Will Change Your Company
Date:September 2, 2026
Time: 12:00 - 1:00pm ET | Virtual on Zoom
Presented by the CMU Alumni Association, this session is designed to provide founders and operators a practical framework for what happens when you hit the key staffing milestones of 15, 50 and 100 employees: Which laws apply, what states have strict legislation you need to keep an eye on and what your HR infrastructure should look like.
Drawing on years of HR and operational leadership across Private Equity-backed and founder-led businesses, Brandon Rosas brings real-world experience helping companies navigate exactly these moments and knows firsthand the costs when you are not prepared, whether that is government penalties or enhanced consultant expenses.
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OTHER APPLICATION DEADLINES
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| Apply to the Pear Fellows Program by August 9!
If you're a current or aspiring CMU undergrad, MBA, or PhD founder who wants to learn how VC actually works, apply to the Pear Fellows program. Past Fellows have gone on to start massive companies, work at top-tier funds like Sequoia, and take leadership roles at Anthropic.
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| Apply for 5050 by August 12
5050 is a free, 12-week program by Fifty Years that helps great scientists and engineers become great founders and start deep tech startups. Alumni have started 115 companies, including Boltz, Electroflow, Medra, and Plasmidsaurus, with a 96% raise-success rate among those who fundraise. No deck, co-founder, or polished idea required, and it's built to fit around your PhD or job until you gain conviction to go full-time. 100% free: no equity, no fees, no weird clauses.
Got questions? Email Alvaro Borda, alvaro@50y.com
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| CONNECTS/START SMART LEGAL SEMINARS
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| CONNECTS & START SMART LEGAL seminars are back for the upcoming
Fall semester!
Can't make a CONNECTS? Watch on our YouTube channel.
See the full schedule and register for ALL of the seminars here!
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 9/1
REGISTERCONNECTS: Design Thinking (Ming Ming Chapman, CMU/Tepper)
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REGISTER
CONNECTS: Business Model Canvas: *A Practical Guide (Craig Markovitz, EIR, CMU Swartz Ceneter)
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CMU ENTREPRENEURSHIP CLUBS
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| Click the images to find out more about each of the Clubs!
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The CMU T&E has a jobs board, available for people across the community to share and seek new opportunities in the startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem. Find out more and visit the website here.
The CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship group aims to build a bridge between CMU students and alumni across the startup and tech continuum. With main chapters in NYC, Pittsburgh, and SF, we offer a range of in-person and online events and programming in the form of panels, workshops, founder/investor engagements, startup support, and socials to foster collaboration, innovation, and networking opportunities.
Join 7,000+ Tartans on our Slack workspace and mailing list for resources and updates on how you can engage in the community and CMU entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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The following companies help directly support our programming and entrepreneurs.
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Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
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Legal Services Weekly Virtual Office Hours with Matt Kirmayer
Mondays 1:00-3:00 PM ET (10-12 PT)
Matt Kirmayer of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, is offering office hours for newly established startup and emerging companies. Matt specializes in representing technology startups and emerging growth companies, assisting with entity formation, fundraising and overall growth needs. Startup companies with a founder who is a CMU graduate, undergraduate or alumni is eligible to register for
an appointment. Complete the Signup Form for a 30 minute session by the Thursday prior to your
desired appointment.
Contact Daria Stokes or Sean Mawhinney for office hours outside of these regular hours.
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Steptoe & Johnson PLLC
Steptoe & Johnson PLLC is a multi-jurisdictional, full-service law firm that takes a progressive approach to providing counsel at each stage of a client’s life cycle. Our dedicated team works closely with our clients to form entities, advise on the most advantageous entity type, and design and negotiate joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions. If a client has a dispute, Steptoe & Johnson has a team of business and product liability litigators and labor and employment lawyers to guide clients through these often stressful and disruptive situations.
Steptoe & Johnson brings a strong skillset for data privacy, cyber security and intellectual property matters which are frequent concerns for startups and technology companies. We offer competitive and flexible rates and aim to provide value to our clients.
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| HOW TO WORK OUT OF THE SWARTZ CENTER
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Swartz Center Education and Resources
No matter what phase of the entrepreneurship cycle you're in, there are programs and resources at the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship that will take your idea to the next level.
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COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITIES/RESOURCES
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FIND OUT WHAT OUR PARTNERS ARE DOING
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Have startup news or opportunities to share? Have questions about the Swartz Center Weekly Bulletin? Send news, opportunities or questions to Sonya Ford, Program Manager.
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Carnegie Mellon University Swartz Center For Entrepreneurship
5000 Forbes Avenue | Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 |
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