Blog by Hashaam Asif
So, you would have probably heard about Matt Maloney. He came to Booth to figure out how to scale his food delivery side hustle. That idea became Grubhub, which was eventually sold to Just Eat Takeaway for a whopping $7.3 billion.
Or maybe you know Katlin Smith. She came to Booth to build a clean, healthy food company and launched Simple Mills during her MBA. It grew into a household brand and was reportedly acquired for $800 million.
These stories aren’t outliers. They’re a preview of what’s possible when you combine entrepreneurial hustle with Booth’s unmatched entrepreneurship ecosystem designed to meet you where you are, whether you’re sketching wireframes in class or finalizing your first term sheet.
Entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth isn’t a side hustle. It’s embedded in the curriculum, baked into the culture, and supercharged by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Welcome to the ultimate MBA founder’s playground. Time to play.
Entrepreneurship Education
At Booth, the entrepreneurship classroom offerings are more than academic exercises. With 19 entrepreneurship courses taught by 37+ world-class faculty members, it’s a full-stack founder curriculum grounded in frameworks, but deeply rooted in real-world execution. Following are just some of the most popular classes:
- Building the New Venture: Your launchpad. Covers startup formation, customer discovery, MVPs, and early-stage funding.
- Entrepreneurial Discovery: For the “I want to build, but don’t know what yet” student. Structured exploration to find the right idea.
- Commercializing Innovation: Learn how to partner with researchers to take cutting-edge IP to market.
- New Venture Strategy: Learn to assess startup ideas, anticipate common pitfalls, and apply proven models to gauge what makes a venture succeed or stall.
- Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA): Booth is a global leader in ETA. This course dives deep into the search fund model from sourcing and diligence to acquisition and post-close growth.
This is not all. Booth, through the Polsky Center, also offers Entrepreneurship Essentials (E2) – workshops that are designed to help students launch startups successfully, covering topics from marketing strategy to financial modeling.
Competitions and Accelerators
Booth’s accelerators and pitch competitions help students move from idea to traction fast and they include:
- New Venture Challenge (NVC): Consistently ranked the #1 university accelerator, with alumni like Grubhub, Braintree, Simple Mills, and Foxtrot. NVC has consistently awarded over $1 million to winners the past several years. Other NVC tracks include:
– College New Venture Challenge (CNVC) – For undergraduate founders across the university
– Global New Venture Challenge (GNVC) – For executive MBA students; cross-border and international startups
– Social New Venture Challenge (SNVC) – For mission-driven, impact-focused startups (in collaboration with the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation) - Build and Launch Summer Accelerators: For Booth-led startups. Offers non-dilutive funding, hands-on coaching, and exposure to investors, corporate partners, and more. While Build Accelerator is for early-stage startups building key elements of their venture and validating assumptions around their market or customers, the Launch accelerator is for startups with traction focusing on fundraising, selling, and gaining and maintaining momentum.
- Duality: The nation’s first quantum technology accelerator, Duality supports ventures leveraging quantum hardware, software, and communication technologies. Startups in the program benefit from access to national labs, academic researchers, and quantum-specific business mentors.
- Transform: A data science and AI accelerator that equips ventures with business strategy support, technical mentorship, and funding opportunities. It’s ideal for startups applying machine learning or AI to solve commercial or societal problems.
- Resurgence: A cleantech-focused accelerator committed to helping startups scale technologies in areas like energy, water, carbon, and sustainability. With tailored support from industry experts and access to lab resources, Resurgence helps founders commercialize innovations that contribute to a more resilient and greener economy.
Events, Conferences, and Networking
At Booth, you’re never more than a handshake away from your next co-founder, investor, strategic partner, or customer. With 250+ events a year, the Polsky Center and Booth curate a buzzing calendar of opportunities to connect, collaborate, and get inspired. Whether you’re pitching to VCs, jamming with scientists, or learning from unicorn founders over tacos, there’s something here for every stage of the journey. Some of the key events that happen around the year include:
- Collaboratorium: This is where ideas meet execution. Connect with UChicago scientists, technologists, and researchers looking for Booth students to help bring their innovations to market.
- Booth-Kellogg ETA Conference: The premier gathering for anyone interested in buying a business. Hear from search funders, operators, and investors who’ve done it and scaled it.
- Corporate Collision: A showcase where top startups in quantum, AI/data science, and cleantech collide with corporates scouting innovation. Think demo day meets industry mixer.
- Polsky Founders’ Circles: A peer coaching space for Booth and UChicago alumni founders. You’ll get real-time advice, expert facilitation, and support from people building alongside you.
- Rattan L. Khosa SeedCon: Booth’s flagship entrepreneurship summit. It’s where VCs, unicorn founders, and next-gen builders come together to share ideas, swap war stories, and spark new ventures.
- Fireside Chats: No fluff. Just candid stories from alumni founders, VCs, and operators sharing what really went down on their way up.
Unparalleled Coaching and Mentorship
The right advice at the right time can change everything, and at Booth, it’s only a click away. Through the Polsky Mentorship Program, Booth students, UChicago alumni, and even community members can book one-on-one meetings with over 100 mentors, including serial entrepreneurs, VCs, product leaders, lawyers, and domain experts across industries.
Each year, Polsky facilitates more than 1,400 mentorship meetings, helping students navigate everything from refining a pitch to structuring a cap table. You’ll also have access to dedicated Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs) and Investors-in-Residence (IIRs) — seasoned operators who meet with students throughout the academic year and run small group workshops, office hours, and firesides.
Want to get started? You can book appointments directly or sign up for the weekly Mentorship Email (sent every Tuesday) to see who’s available, what topics they cover, and how to connect.
Pro tip: come with questions, leave with clarity (and possibly, a game-changing connection).
Venture Funding!
Yes, you can actually raise money while still in B-school — and Booth makes it easier than most. From pitch stages to investor intros, here’s how founders get funded on campus:
- New Venture Challenge (NVC): Over $1 million in investment up for grabs!
- George Shultz Innovation Fund (GSIF): Up to $250K for early-stage science and tech ventures with serious potential.
- NSF I-Corps: Get cash and coaching to test your riskiest assumptions on an idea in a STEM field before spending real money.
- Investor Demo Days: Think Shark Tank, but Booth-style – where real angels and VCs come to find what’s next.
- Warm Intros to VCs and Angels: Polsky’s network runs deep and if your venture’s ready, they’ll help get it in front of the right people.
Raising while you’re learning? That’s the Booth advantage!
Fellowships and Internships
Chicago Booth, together with the Polsky Center, offers a range of fellowships, internships, and opportunities to help students explore entrepreneurship, gain hands-on experience, and even de-risk launching a venture full-time.
- Entrepreneurial Internship Program (EIP): Want to intern at a startup or work on your own venture over the summer? EIP provides funding for first-year Booth students to gain hands-on experience without having to choose between learning and earning.
- Polsky Founders’ Fund Fellowship (PF3): Up to $24K in SAFE funding for graduating students going all-in on their ventures post-Booth; keep the momentum, skip the day job.
- ETA Fellows: Thinking of buying a business instead of building one? This fellowship plugs you into Booth’s powerhouse ETA network of searchers and investors.
- Innovation Fund Associates (IFA): Be a venture analyst for real deep-tech startups and help decide where UChicago’s innovation money goes.
- Resurgence Fellowship: Into cleantech or climate innovation? This fellowship gets you into the trenches of the next green unicorns.
- Connections: Get matched with early-stage startups and entrepreneurs that actually need you and want you in the room where it all happens.
About the Polsky Center: Your Hub for Entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth
The Polsky Center is Booth’s venture engine. It’s made up of specialized teams that support founders, builders, and innovators at every stage:
- Booth Entrepreneurship Team: The heartbeat of entrepreneurship at Booth. This team designs and runs all MBA-facing programs from courses and NVC tracks to the Build and Launch Summer Accelerators, mentorship networks, founder dinners, clubs, and events. Whether you’re exploring, building, or scaling, they help you find your footing and your next step.
- Polsky Tech Ventures: Oversees UChicago’s intellectual property, patents, and tech commercialization. Partners with Booth students through the Collaboratorium and innovation courses, and runs science- and tech-focused accelerators like Duality (quantum), Transform (AI), Resurgence (cleantech), and the George Shultz Innovation Fund.
- Polsky Exchange: The community-facing arm of the Polsky Center. It’s a launchpad for South Side entrepreneurs and a hands-on learning lab for Booth students. Through the Illinois Small Business Development Center, it offers no-cost advising to 1,000+ local businesses. Programs like the Small Business Growth Program give students the chance to apply their skills to real-world challenges — and make a tangible impact.
Final Word
There’s no one “right” way to be a founder at Booth. Some students arrive with a company, others leave with one. Some launch, others acquire. Some invest while others explore and get ready to become entrepreneurs down the line.
What unites them all is access — to capital, coaching, community, and conviction.
Booth gives you the freedom to dream, and the structure to execute. The only question remains: what will you build at Booth?
Curious? Inspired? Eager to build?
Whether you’re just getting started or already making moves, Polsky’s got something for you. Check out what events are coming up next and sign up for the Polsky newsletter so you never miss what’s new in the world of entrepreneurship at Booth.
