Startups

Research scientist Barmak Heshmat, CEO and founder of MIT spinout Brelyon, speaks with TechCrunch reporter Haje Jan Kamps about the company’s work in immersive digital monitors. “Our logic is pretty simple: If we can give you even half of the immersion of headsets with a device that doesn’t have to sit on your face and works with all existing content, then that would be a much more compelling progression of your computer experience and thus a better bridge to the emerging metaverse,” says Heshmat.

Researchers from MIT’s Research Laboratory for Electronics have developed a portable desalinator that can turn seawater into safe drinking water, reports Ian Mount for Fortune. Research scientist Jongyoon Han and graduate student Bruce Crawford have created Nona Technologies to commercialize the product, writes Mount.

Prof. Hari Balakrishnan speaks with Forbes contributor Stuart Anderson about his decision to leave India to pursue a PhD in computer science in the U.S., his love for teaching students as a professor at MIT and his work co-founding Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a software company that utilizes technology to make roads safer. “Immigration and immigrants make the United States stronger,” said Balakrishnan. “Immigration is the biggest strength that we have. We need to be able to attract and retain talent, no matter where people come from.”

MIT and Harvard startup GiveDirectly, “identifies poor people and villages, usually in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and distributes cash to them directly, usually via cellphone payment, instead of donations like food and livestock,” reports Dylan Matthews for Vox.

Boston Metal, an MIT startup, is working to transition the steel industry from coal-based fuel to sustainably produced electricity, reports Scott Kirsner for The Boston Globe. The “key to making iron and steel production less environmentally damaging is getting access to sustainable power from wind, solar, hydro, or nuclear, and finding ways to store that power to use when it’s needed, such as in large-scale batteries,” explains Kirsner.

Jamie Earl White BS ’10, MS ’12 speaks with Fast Company reporter Clint Rainey about his startup, Unit of Work, which provides free consulting to workers trying to unionize their workplaces. “Our goal is to get resources to workers in underserved workplaces, but not make them a part of our own union,” says White. “We act more like consultants who help them get where they want to be with unionizing their workplace.”

Researchers from MIT, Harvard University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology have examined the impact of tech startups working in close proximity, reports Cheryl Winokur Munk for The Wall Street Journal. The researchers found that “'knowledge spillovers' were greatest between dissimilar startups that worked within 20 meters (22 yards) of each other,” writes Munk. “Working in such close range allowed for socialization, which in turn led to idea sharing about the types of technology the startups were using as part of their overall tech infrastructure.”

Alumni Carter Huffman ’14 and Mike Pappas ’14 co-founded Modulate, an artificial intelligence technology that helps differentiate between friendly banter and inappropriate outbursts in video game voice chats, reports Scott Kirsner for The Boston Globe.  “Modulate highlights for a game’s human moderators the most severe violations of the game’s guidelines and allows them to decide on the consequences after they examine the situation,” writes Kirsner. “They may send the player a warning, mute them temporarily, or ban them from the game.”

Prof. Mircea Dincă and Grama Sorin co-founded Transaera, a company dedicated to designing air conditioners that require significantly less energy, reports Scott Kirsner for The Boston Globe. “Grama and Dincă cofounded Transaera in 2018 and supported their early work with about $2 million in state and federal grants, from agencies that included the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center,” writes Kirsner.

Gradiant, an MIT startup founded by Anurag Bajpayee PhD ’12, S.M. ‘08 and Prakash Govindan PhD ’12, has developed an energy efficient system that purifies water by mimicking natural rainfall cycles, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “Nature has the advantage of having all the surface area of the oceans available freely and a free source of energy from the sun,” Govindan said. “We have to engineer this into a compact, highly efficient, and energy-efficient industrial device.”

Quaise Energy co-founder Carlos Araque BS ’01 MS ’02 speaks with Guy Raz, host of NPR’s How I Built This, about his time on the MIT Electric Vehicle Team, starting his company and the future of geothermal energy. “We would build these cars together, literally from scratch,“ said Araque about the EVT. "Very hands on, a lot of engineering went into that. And it [offered] very early experience with building things that work -- not only work, but work reliantly and consistently.”  

Mark Lee MS ’94 spoke with Forbes reporter Karen Walker about the success of Splashtop, a company he co-founded that is developing cloud-based software that allows secure and remote access and support.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT spinout, has signed an agreement with the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to “support the fastest path to clean commercial fusion energy,” reports Ed Browne for Newsweek. “CFS says its agreement with UKAEA could involve exchanges of knowledge and collaboration on things like fuel, modeling, manufacturing and maintenance,” writes Browne. 

Butlr, spinout founded by researchers from the MIT Media Lab, is developing sensors that utilize body heat to estimate office occupancy, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. The new technology “uses thermal sensing AI to provide data on space occupancy and historical activity,” writes Wiggers.

Alumni Mahmoud Ghulman and Aziz Alghunaim co-founded Nash, a platform that allows businesses to select specific delivery providers based on price and availability, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “By removing the technical, logistical, and operational overhead associated with offering a reliable delivery experience, Nash helped hundreds of businesses access new customers and revenue streams,” says Ghulman.