UPDATED: April 9, 2025
Originally published inĢżCarroll Capital, the print publication of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. .
In 2009, Tom Coburn ā13 was a freshman in Shaw House, studying
biology and theology with an eye toward medical school. His roommates were excited about what was then called 51²č¹Ż VC, a venture capital competition offered through the Carroll School of Management, and they convinced Coburn to participate with them in theĢżcompetition. Their idea, for a medical device company, didnāt win, but Coburn was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.Ģż
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Tom Coburn '13
He continued to brainstorm ideas, and one day at Logan Airport, as he stared up at the television screens in the terminal, Coburn realized that he was ignoring the ads. āI started wondering, āWhat if we could attach questions to ads to make sure you were paying attention? And then pay people for getting the answers right, and only charge the businesses if you got the answer right,āā says Coburn.Ģż
The next year, he entered the 51²č¹Ż VC with the idea for that business, called Jebbit, and tied for first place. One of the judges was Peter Bell ā86, P ā20, ā25, who told him about a summer accelerator program for college startups at Highland Capital Partners, where Bell worked at the time. āThat program changed the trajectory of my life,ā says Coburn. He dropped his plan for medical school and ran with Jebbit, which today employs 100 people and works with premier brands like the NFL and LāOreal.
Then he came up with another idea. āI went to Peter and said, āWhy donāt we do a summer accelerator just for 51²č¹Ż students?āā Together with Miguel Galvez, MCAS ā12, they launched as a nonprofit accelerator program for that purpose. Ten years later, SSC has become a fixture of Boston Collegeās entrepreneurial community, which revolves around the Edmund H. Shea Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship and its daily programming. More recently, SSC added venture capital to its offerings, pivoting to for-profit status. It also opened up its accelerator to Boston College alumni and staff.
SSCās general partners (GPs) take no salary but participate in funding decisions and mentorship and receive a portion of fund earning. They "care deeply about 51²č¹Ż and paying it forward toĢżyounger generations of people within the 51²č¹Ż community,ā says Christina Quinn ā13, one of the GPs and a founder of Lua, an early-stage startup consultancy. āItās very reflective of the broader sentiment you see with 51²č¹Ż alumniāthat sense of camaraderie and care for fellow Eagles.ā
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SSC general parters with participants of the accelorator program.
Ted Wind ā25 and Dan Biundo, MCAS ā25, participated in theĢżsummer accelerator program after sophomore year for their business Socion, a software platform in the influencer marketing space. āWe entered the accelerator in a kind of fog,ā Wind recalls. āWhere should we go with the business? Where do we start? But right from the beginning, we had help.ā They tapped into SSCās robust mentoring network, and this year, the two juniors landed their first customers. The business continues to grow.Ģż
Through SSC, alumni and other investors have made 109 investments in Boston College startups to the tune of more than $5 million altogether. Forty-three percent of those startups had diverse founders, who are otherwise āwoefully underrepresented in the venture capital industry,ā Quinn says, noting that less than 2 percent of all venture capital goes to women and minorities. But she adds that SSC has been intentional about "welcoming and nuturing diverse founders."Ģż
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SSCās general partners Christina Quinn ā13, Tom Coburn ā13, and Duncan Walker ā13 (not pictured: Peter Bell '86, P '20, '25).
One of them, Lurein Perera, MCAS ā21, went from the Shea Centerās spring accelerator to SSCās summer accelerator. After those experiences, he came up with the idea for GiveCard, which provides a cash-transfer solution with no fees for the end user. Perera drew a six-figure investment in GiveCard from SSC two years ago and was introduced to other investors who added to the pot. āTens of thousands of people in the US are using GiveCard today,ā says Perera. āTheyāre getting meals, hotel stays, and paying for education. To have had that kind of impact is really cool.ā
SSC provides $10,000 in funding to each accelerator startup, and the successful businesses that have emerged from the program āare as diverse as its founders,ā says Duncan Walker ā13, CTO of music marketing firm Heard (which went through the accelerator) and an SSC GP. He points to companies ranging from Viv, which makes sustainable period care products, and Kured, a charcuterie board company with stores in New York and Boston, to Fisherman, which produces restaurant websites.
All of this fits seamlessly into Boston Collegeās entrepreneurial ecosystem, says Jere Doyle, the Popolo Family Executive Director of the Shea Center, explaining that many of Sheaās speakers, mentors, and competition judges come from SSC. āItās natural for a Shea student to look to SSC when itās time to take next steps.āĢż
The team invites anyone interested in SSC to contact partners@sscventurepartners.com.
