Experience Stern | News & Events

Left to right: Endless Frontier Labs Founding Director Deepak Hegde, Interim Dean J.P. Eggers, Elizabeth Elting (MBA ‘92), Capella Kerst of geCKo Materials, Maria Soloveychik of SyntheX, Martina Kingvall of Telness Tech, and Moran Snir of Nest Genomics

On May 8, The Endless Frontier Labs (EFL), NYU Stern’s hub for massively scalable tech and life science startups from around the world, celebrated its 2024-2025 cohort of 79 graduating startups during its annual Frontiers showcase event.

This year, participating ventures in EFL’s four tracks—Deep Tech, Digital Tech, Life Sciences, and new this year, Digital Health—included a startup that makes genomic data more manageable, one that revolutionizes mobility for millions with walking disorders, one that mitigates AI hallucinations and bias in deep learning models, and one that enhances activity, prevents exhaustion, and promotes development in memory cells. 

Elizabeth Elting (MBA ’92)

NYU Stern alumna Elizabeth Elting (MBA ’92) has donated $2 million to EFL to provide investment funding for promising women-centric businesses that have successfully completed the program. This year, startup graduates geCKo Materials (Deep Tech track), Nest Genomics (Digital Health track), SyntheX (Life Sciences track), and Telness Tech (Digital Tech track) were awarded funding. Here’s more on each:

• Led by Capella Kerst, CEO, geCKo Materials offers a bio-inspired dry adhesive that is ultra-strong, reusable, and residue-free, detaching without force. This technology lowers costs and energy consumption while enabling new applications in industrial automation, robotic gripping, space, and defense.
• Led by Moran Snir, CEO, Nest Genomics brings genetic information to the point of care with the automated infrastructure that organizations need to implement and scale longitudinal genomic programs.
• Led by Maria Soloveychik, CEO, SyntheX invented a novel cell-engineering strategy to target previously inaccessible disease-causing proteins by leveraging protein-protein interaction disruption and protein degradation.
• Led by Martina Klingvall, CEO, Telness Tech streamlines mobile operator launches and operations by providing fully automated end-to-end software solutions that enhance customer satisfaction and reduce costs.

Founded and led by Andrew Hamilton Director and Professor Deepak Hegde, EFL integrates the startup venture process with Stern’s MBA curriculum to transform scientific and technological innovations into commercial enterprises. A nine-month, goal-oriented mentorship program designed for novel early-stage science and technology startups, EFL engages a lineup of A-list business mentors, scientists, and venture capitalists including experts from many NYU schools. 

Endless Frontier Labs Founding Director Deepak Hegde

EFL helps startup founders quickly advance and massively scale startups in addition to building a stronger MBA student experience. Founders receive business development support from Stern MBA students who are enrolled in a companion EFL course taught by Professor Hegde.

Since its founding, EFL has become one of the world’s most successful accelerators:

• $2.3 billion in capital raised by 196 EFL startups
• $7.49 billion combined valuation from 178 graduates alone
• 48.1% of all EFL graduate startups to date led by women founders

EFL is a “founders first” program, meaning it does not charge fees or take equity, making it accessible to startups all over the world, with no prior affiliation to NYU required.

EFL has also announced that its 2025-2026 application for next year’s program is now open.