The Tamer Fund for Social Ventures, a Columbia Business School program that provides $25,000 grants to nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid early-stage social and environmental ventures, has awarded funding to three new startups. After 19 funding cycles, 70 ventures led by Columbia University students, alumni, faculty or researchers, or are advised by Columbia University faculty or researchers, have received funding.
The most recent funding cycle represents three Columbia University schools, adding to the portfolio founding teams that represent over 15 schools across the University. Upon selection, these entrepreneurs gain funding and access to a wide variety of connections and resources available through the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change at Columbia Business School.
The following awardees were selected after their participation in an application screening round, a due diligence process with student teams from the Columbia Business School course Investing in Social Ventures, and a final pitch to the fund’s investment board:
Fall 2024
- Nourish All, founded by Samantha Koches, ’15BUS, leverages mushroom production to build food security and income for vulnerable communities in Kenya and Uganda.
- Shred Electric, founded by Nick Planson, ’05SEAS, builds carbon-neutral sea farms that eliminate fossil fuels from the entire aquaculture supply chain.
- Synvect, co-founded by Pooja Y. Patel ’18PH ’16BC, Nikolay Kandul, and Omar Akbari, is a bioengineered solution for the local elimination of mosquito-borne disease that uses a suppression box with mosquito eggs that emerge into non-biting, sterile males.