ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½

Friday, February 20, 2026

Swartz Center strengthened ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½’s Silicon Valley connections at Lab to Market investor summit

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, already deeply embedded in Silicon Valley through its many graduates and innovations, tightened the connection by hosting a tech investor showcase in San Francisco on Feb. 11.

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship brought together entrepreneurs and high-powered venture capitalists to meet and exchange insights with ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ professors and researchers at Swartz’s exclusive Lab to Market Spring 2026 event. Think of it as a daylong takeover of Northern California by ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon, which ranks as one of the nation’s top institutions for computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics research and teaching.

The summit began with entrepreneurial inspiration in the form of a keynote conversation with Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, the breakthrough AI search engine company valued last September at $20 billion. Speaking to Sameer Gandhi, partner at renowned VC firm Accel, Srinivas told the audience of about 250 people that tech success comes with pain and paranoia. “In startups, especially in AI, every day or week someone is releasing some new product or new feature,” Srinivas said. “And it’s not just startups. The big companies are doing it now. So you have to move fast, make contact with reality very often and keep iterating on your thesis.”

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ has a storied tradition of scientific achievement. The Pittsburgh campus is the birthplace of both artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicle technology, and the results of such cutting-edge research were obvious to Lab to Market participants. Several speakers noted how easy it is to glance out a window in San Francisco and spot a Waymo driverless vehicle ferrying a paying customer. Yet it takes more than tech brilliance to change the world. A product has to come to market, and that requires business savvy – and funding.

Lab to Market is a deep-tech cornerstone showcase

This is where the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship plays a vital commercialization role. The Center, the university’s hub for entrepreneurial excellence and startup creation, has helped ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon become a significant producer of startups among academic institutions. The Swartz Center’s Lab to Market, which is now a twice-annual annual showcase, connects the transformative ventures emerging from the work of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ faculty, researchers and students to investors and industry leaders.

More than a dozen people from ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ came to San Francisco to participate in a variety of robust panel discussions on topics at the front of mind for investors, including “Investing in AI: What’s Fundable Now, What’s Next?” and “Financing and Building the Future of Robotics.” The event was hosted by Accel and Pear, another important VC firm focused on seed and pre-seed investments.

The day was a combination of real talk about Silicon Valley’s interest in the next big thing and a chance for ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon faculty and students with tech start-up companies or start-up ambitions to show their innovative ideas, share learnings and make important connections. The focus was on two areas of innovation now obsessing the tech world: AI and physical AI (otherwise known as robotics). ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ leads in both.

Quanting Xie, a graduate research student at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½’s Robotics Institute, was one of several researchers who presented to the audience. He said it was an amazing day for his start-up, Origami Robotics, which is developing an impressive human-like robotic hand. The company’s goal is to make the hand dexterous enough to fold origami paper, an achievement that would unlock opportunities in factory assembly automation.

“I got to talk to a lot of investors and schedule calls and meet potential customers,” Xie said.

Origami is looking to raise money, work that is easier to accomplish in Silicon Valley. In fact, the company has relocated to San Francisco from Pittsburgh. For the same reason, Xie said, ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½’s Lab to Market is an important chance to support its faculty, students and alumni network and keep the university competitive with rivals such as Stanford and UC Berkeley.

“What I realized is there are just so many more resources in SF, and so many more people interested in startups – so many more VCs and founders,” he said. “So it’s definitely useful to have an event like this in SF, not in Pittsburgh.”

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ is ‘rich in entrepreneurship’
The rivalry theme with Bay Area schools may seem a distraction, but several participants at Lab to Market with ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ ties said competition with the likes of Stanford is real.

“The ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon environment is exceptionally rich in technical talent and more rich in entrepreneurship than it gives itself credit for,” said Maryanna Saenko, co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Future Ventures and a ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ alumna who was a panelist at Lab to Market.. “I find so often that for entrepreneurs coming from ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon the bar seems so high for them to even think about starting something. I think it comes from the rigor of the school. What I appreciate about (Lab to Market) is the feeling that entrepreneurship is more accessible, and investors are not nine-headed Hydras that breathe fire and are intent on taking control of your brilliant ideas, but rather genuinely people who want to see your ideas flourish.”

Destenie Nock, ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and founder and CEO of Peoples Energy Analytics, said the discussions at Lab to Market were valuable because they moved beyond daily headlines to highlight important work in physical AI and the infrastructure that enables it.

“It was interesting to think through all the facets of how this technology can disrupt the industry and where the VCs are looking,” said Nock, who was also a panelist..

Kevin Peterson, a ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ alumnus and co-founder of Bedrock Robotics who previously worked at Waymo, said the investment landscape has changed significantly, requiring significant capital. “There's tons of great founders at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon, so connecting with investors over a long period of time is really, really important,” said Peterson, who spoke on a panel.

The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and related college-based and regional programs have helped to launch 400+ startups in the last decade, positioning ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ at the center of Pittsburgh’s renaissance into a vibrant technology hub for startups and large companies. There have been 67 ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½-affiliated unicorns, including Duolingo, Skild AI, Nest, Cognizant and Aurora, and startups with ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ IP or equity that have exited with more than $638 billion in cumulative value.

The Lab to Market showcase in San Francisco builds on the university’s prowess and the Swartz Center’s mission, connecting ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½’s “world-class technical excellence to capital, customers and community that help companies scale,” said Meredith Meyer Grelli, Interim Executive Director of the Swartz Center and Assistant Dean of Entrepreneurship Initiatives in the School of Computer Science..

Meyer Grelli said proof of Lab to Market’s success came quickly: Within days of the event, the Swartz Center had heard about a number of investors who were examining companies they met on Wednesday.

“By convening ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½’s innovators alongside leading investors in Silicon Valley,” she said, “we’re expanding opportunities for our entrepreneurs while deepening the university’s presence in one of the world’s most dynamic startup ecosystems."

The Swartz Center will participate in New York Tech Week June 1-5 and will host ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Startup Week 2026 Sept. 15-18 on the Pittsburgh campus.