The Chaifetz Center for Entrepreneurship, the entrepreneur programming arm of Saint Louis University’s Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business, has created a new startup accelerator program to help current students and recent alumni launch businesses.
The Chaifetz Center’s New Venture Accelerator (NVA) has opened for applications, with plans to debut its first class of companies in May. It will provide between $5,000 and $50,000 in equity-free grants to selected participants and provide additional resources designed to help launch new startups.
The NVA isn’t a new concept to Chaifetz Center Director Lewis Sheats, who staged several iterations of a similar program while leading entrepreneurship initiatives in a former role at North Carolina State University. Sheats joined SLU from NC State in 2021, reviving the Chaifetz Center’s operations.
While the NVA will provide nondilutive funding for participants, Sheats said the other resources provided will be critical too to launching new businesses out of the program.
“Sometimes it’s even more important that we give them access to first customers, alumni as advisers and mentors, resources like 3D printers and databases in the library,” Sheats said.
The brand of Saint Louis University can also be a powerful tool as new companies launch operations, Sheats said.
“A young student trying to get into a potential customer might have a hard time getting through that first gate, but using the brand of Saint Louis University behind them, that can open a lot more doors for them.”
The NVA is open to undergraduate students in their junior and senior years, graduate students, and alumni who have received a degree from SLU in the past five years. The accelerator is industry-agnostic, Sheats said. While Sheats said applicants don’t have to have an incorporated business to be considered for the NVA, the program wants participants who are beyond just an idea for a business.
“We want to see some effort already put into it by the time they get to the accelerator,” he said.
Those selected for the NVA will participate in a 14-week, in-person accelerator program that ends with a demo day in August. The accelerator's program will focus on helping participants with customer discovery, revenue modeling and business development.
The Chaifetz Center expects to select three to five participants for its initial NVA class. Applications close March 27.
Sheats said the goal of the 14-week accelerator program will be to help selected participants determine if their businesses are viable, and if so, work with them to aggressively push forward with their startups, helping them seek funding and build out teams. He said the Chaifetz Center will continue to support the companies after they complete the NVA program.
Participants for the NVA will be chosen by selection panels that will include local SLU alumni, investors and entrepreneurs. The Chaifetz Center said its NVA program is being supported with funding from alumni of SLU’s business school.
