Waymo Secures $16B to Expand Autonomous Ride-Hailing into New Markets
February 3, 2026
Ryan Coogler Named Creative of the Year as Creative Collective NYC Celebrates 83 Black Innovators
February 3, 2026
Two Stanford graduates have raised $2 million for Breakthrough Ventures, an accelerator program that supports student- and recent-graduate startups nationwide.
Mayfield, Collide Capital, and Stanford founder alumni are backing the program, supporting startups in AI, health, consumer, deep tech, and sustainability.
The Story of Breakthrough Ventures
Roman Scott earned his bachelor’s degree at Stanford in 2024 and completed a master’s degree in the same program the following year. The idea took shape after Roman Scott and Itbaan Nafi began hosting Demo Days at Stanford in 2024.
Related Post: Yale Students Raise $3.1M in 14 Days to Build an AI-Powered Social Network
Those events drew strong attendance, and as participating founders began to show “measurable success,” Scott and Nafi decided to scale what had begun as a campus initiative into a nationwide effort. At the beginning of last year, the pair invited Raihan Ahmed to lead the accelerator.
Nafi framed the raise as a shift in what the program can promise founders long-term: the new fund, he said, “turns Breakthrough from just being a seasonal accelerator into a lifelong partnership with our founders.”
The founders brought in Raihan Ahmed to lead the accelerator early last year, and then formalized fundraising. Scott stated that what makes their accelerator different is that it is specifically built “for student founders by student founders.”
How The Venture Fund Will Operate
Breakthrough will run a hybrid model, combining in-person meetups at leading venture capital firms with virtual programming, culminating in a Demo Day at Stanford. Participants will receive up to $10,000 in grant funding, compute credits through Microsoft and Nvidia Inception, legal support, and mentorship.
Related Post: Aesthetic: Harvard Grad Spearheads AI Fashion Brand Re-Imagining Shopping
They’ll also have a chance at a $50,000 follow-on investment at the end of the program. Nafi says the structure is deliberate: “We’ve nailed the student-founder experience to a T,” he said, adding that students respond because the team understands their constraints and pace.
Student accelerators aren’t new; UC Berkeley has Free Ventures, MIT has the Sandbox Innovation Fund, and Stanford hosts multiple accelerators, including StartX, LaunchPad, and Cardinal Ventures.
But Scott says Breakthrough tackles what blocks student founders outside top ecosystems: “Breakthrough’s purpose is to fill in the funding and opportunity gap… because students have historically lacked access to capital and the networks required to launch their entrepreneurial pursuits.”
The founders intend to deploy the fund over the next three years and aim to incubate at least 100 startups. They’ve also opened applications for the latest cohort.
An Ambition to Support Young Entrepreneurs
Their ambition, Nafi claims, goes beyond outcomes for any single company: they want the program to lift stories that inspire more young people to try entrepreneurship “to change their communities” and build “economic stability for themselves and their families.”
“We hope that by supporting young entrepreneurs, we can share as many stories as possible to inspire many people to use the available tools and knowledge for entrepreneurship that not only changes their communities but also brings economic stability for them and their families,” added Nafi.
Related Post: Yale University Announces Free Tuition for Families with Incomes Below $200,000
Applications for the current cohort begin today.
Main Image: Breakthrough Ventures Roman Scott and Itbaan Nafi. Image Credit: Breakthrough Ventures
