Four SOM Ventures Win Prizes at Startup Yale 2026
Student-led startups HAVN, PARTEE, and Comitia won audience choice awards at the university-wide entrepreneurship event.
Earlier this month, Yale SOM sent nine finalists to Startup Yale 2026, the university’s biggest entrepreneurship competition, and brought home three prizes.
Startup Yale, held on April 10, is a collaboration between the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, and Yale Ventures. The annual event included venture pitches, mentorship conversations, and workshops with successful entrepreneurs.
“It represents how much Yale supports entrepreneurship and how this ecosystem is created to propel founders forward,” said Sophia Yang ’27, who pitched her cybersecurity platform PARTEE during the event.
Christopher Huang ’26, who competed with his influencer marketing platform Surge, appreciated the chance to connect with founders across the university. “It’s important to know what is going on in the entrepreneurship community, but also just to show support for the founders who are grinding out there,” he said.
Four SOM ventures won awards:
- Shivansh Chaturvedi ’26 placed second in the Planetary Solutions Prize for his venture Apical, which uses machine learning to improve solar power forecasts.
- Bhavya Chauhan ’26 won the audience choice award for the Manolo Sanchez Prize. Her healthcare startup, HAVN, uses clinical and demographic data to match patients to pharma- and advocacy-sponsored support programs.
- Han Jung ’26 won the audience choice postering award for Comitia, a startup that uses AI to allow people without drawing experience to create and share their own comics.
- Yang’s startup, PARTEE, won the audience choice award for the Miller Prize.
