MassLive reporter Scott Kirsner spotlights Claire Beskin MBA '22, CEO and founder of Empallo, a virtual clinic for heart care aimed at preventing cardiac issues before they happen. “It handles everything from scheduling to prescriptions to billing,” writes Kirsner. “Empallo’s approach, Beskin said, is ‘virtual first,’ meaning it tries to give patients an online consult with a doctor when possible, and send them into the office when necessary.”
Addis Energy, a startup co-founded by Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang is using the earth “as a chemical reactor to make ammonia in a cleaner way,” reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. The team identifies “rocky formations underground with large amounts of iron,” explains Knapp. “Then they inject those rocks with water, nitrogen and a chemical catalyst. That causes the oxygen in the water to bind with the iron in the rocks—making rust—freeing the hydrogen, which reacts with nitrogen to form ammonia.”
Fortune reporter Orianna Rosa Royle spotlights Luana Lopes Lara '18, co-founder of Kalshi, a company that allows users to bet on the outcome of events, such as “elections, sports matches, and pop culture happenings.” Rosa Royle details Lopes Lara’s journey establishing Kalshi with her co-founder Tarek Mansour ’18, MNG ’19.
Luana Lopes Lara ’18 and Tarek Mansour ’18, MNG ’19 co-founded Kalshi, a company that allows “users to bet on the outcome of future events such as elections, sports games and pop culture happenings,” reports Alicia Park for Forbes. Lopes Lara chronicles her journey from her time on stage as a professional ballerina in Austria to her years as a student at MIT to her entrepreneurial ambitions.
Matt Carey MBA '17 and Greg Charvat, a former visiting researcher at the MIT Media Lab, co-founded TeraDAR, a startup that has developed advanced sensor technology that can see through various weather conditions that often confuse existing car sensors, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “We’re going to the last part of the electromagnetic spectrum that no one has ever been able to build a product at before,” explains Carey. “And instead of being able to see through your hand like an X-ray, we can see through rain and snow and dust and fog.”
Business Insider reporter Julia Hornstein spotlights Sampriti Bhattacharyya PhD '17, CEO and co-founder of Navier, a startup working to build hydrofoil boats. “Bhattacharyya says the hydrofoiling technique consumes 90% less energy than its traditional gas counterpart and creates a stable glide even in the choppiest of conditions, eliminating seasickness,” writes Hornstein.
Wall Street Journal reporter Angel Au-Yeung spotlights Anysphere, an AI startup founded by Michael Truell '21, Sualeh Asif '22, Arvid Lunnemar '22, and Aman Sanger '22. “The company makes an AI tool that learns a developer’s coding style to help autocomplete, edit and review lines of code,” writes Au-Yeung.
Michael Truell '21, Sualeh Asif '22, Arvid Lunnemar '22, and Aman Sanger '22 co-founded Anysphere, an AI startup developing Cursor, an AI coding tool that “allows engineers to use AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI to write and edit entire chunks of code as well as identify and fix bugs,” reports Rashi Shrivastava for Forbes.
Stwart Peña Feliz MBA '23 co-founded MacroCycle, a startup that has “devised a way to pluck desirable synthetic fibers from waste textiles, leaving everything else behind,” reports Tim de Chant for TechCrunch. “MacroCycle differs because it doesn’t break down polymers,” explains Tim de Chant. “Instead, it loops the polymer chains back on themselves, forcing them into rings called macrocycles. Those macrocycles remain behind as different solvents wash away contaminants, which themselves could be recycled. Later, the rings are reopened to reform the polymer chain.”
Wired reporter Steven Levy spotlights Research Scientist Sarah Schwettmann PhD '21 and her work investigating the unknown behaviors of AI agents. Schwettmann has co-founded Transluce, a nonprofit interpretability startup “to further study such phenomena,” writes Levy.
Vertical Semiconductor, an MIT spinoff, is working to “commercialize chip technology that can deliver electricity to artificial intelligence servers more efficiently,” reports Stephen Nellis for Reuters. “We do believe we offer a compelling next-generation solution that is not just a couple of percentage points here and there, but actually a step-wise transformation,” says Cynthia Liao MBA '24.
Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray spotlights how Reekon Tools, a company co-founded by Christian Reed '14, is focused on reimagining construction tools by integrating new technologies to provide a more efficient and accurate user experience. “Reekon’s tape measures include digital memory, Bluetooth wireless networking, and a laser for exact alignment,” explains Bray. “They can relay their measurements to another Reekon device, which ensures that pieces of wood or metal are cut to exactly the right length.”
Leah Ellis, a former MIT postdoc and co-founder of MIT startup Sublime Systems, speaks with Nature reporter Jacqui Thornton about the creation of the company. “I felt that the word Sublime encapsulated the spirit of excellence, transcendence and purity that we intend to exemplify as we build a technology and a company that we hope will change the world — and the inherent properties of cement itself.”
Visiting Scholar Ariel Ekblaw SM '17, PhD '20 speaks with WBUR’s On Point host Meghna Chakrabarti about her academic career, the space industry and her new non-profit company the Aurelia Institute. The company is “dedicated to building humanity’s future in space for the benefit of the earth,” says Chakrabarti. Additionally, the company plans to use “space infrastructure, satellites, and large scale space structures in orbit to do really profound things for day-to-day life on Earth,” adds Ekblaw.
Edward Woodford SM '15 founded Zerohash, a crypto and stablecoin infrastructure company, aimed at helping “financial institutions and fintechs build out their own products for stablecoins, crypto trading, and tokenization,” reports Ben Weiss for Fortune. “Over eight years, Woodford has managed to ride multiple crypto booms and busts,” writes Weiss. “It’s not just that we’re a survivor,” says Woodford. “We’ve actually thrived in that market, and actually now, I think we can accelerate that even further.”