Brown has no core curriculum, so undergraduates get unusual freedom to shape their own education, and many end up building companies.
Flexibility across disciplines enabled an electrical engineering and economics graduate to build a software powerhouse. A history student and a computer engineer also teamed up to challenge inflated drug prices.
The founders on this list show how far that freedom goes. Some run companies that are household names in business software, while others are recent graduates and students pitching infant warmers and crop-pest treatments for prize money or grants.
Open Curriculum, Open Doors
Designing a custom study path at Brown gives students creative freedom, but the university’s founder programmes are what turn those concepts into active ventures.
The Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship is behind these projects through targeted support. In 2026, the centre’s Brown Venture Prize awarded $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000 to its top three finishers.
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The resulting trajectory explains the balance of profiles below. Established figures built large-scale operations years after leaving campus. The latest generation of founders is still in the launch phase, with accomplishments defined by university awards and early-stage investments.
Brown Alumni And Students Who Built Companies
Eight companies made the cut, with software and database names alongside student startups still winning their first prizes.
1. Aneel Bhusri, Co-Founder Of Workday
Aneel Bhusri earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and economics from Brown before completing an MBA at Stanford. In 2005 he co-founded Workday with Dave Duffield, building the company around cloud software for finance and human resources.
That makes him the biggest name on this list by some distance. He has also served on the boards of Intel and Okta, among others, and is a trustee of Stanford.
2. Eliot Horowitz, Co-Founder Of MongoDB
Eliot Horowitz studied computer science at Brown, then worked as a software developer at DoubleClick, which Google later bought for $3.1 billion. In 2005 he and Dwight Merriman started the comparison shopping search engine ShopWiki.
Two years later the pair and Kevin Ryan started 10gen, a platform-as-a-service company, and its data storage engine grew into MongoDB, the database the company later took its name from.
3. Saajan Patel, Co-Founder Of Che Innovations
Saajan Patel is a Brown medical student, class of 2029, and co-founded Che Innovations in 2023. The team built NeoNest, a low-cost portable infant warmer made from household materials such as a jerrycan, designed to keep newborns warm on ambulance journeys between rural Ugandan villages and national referral hospitals.
The team includes engineers from Makerere University in Uganda and Duke University. It took first place and $25,000 at the 2026 Brown Venture Prize; the company has received $135,000 in funding and holds two utility patents. NeoNest awaits clinical approval and is ready for pilot testing, while an accessory product is already in 18 Ugandan hospitals, serving 100 newborns a month.
4. Christopher Williams, Founder Of Nematex
Christopher Williams studied geology-biology and computer science at Brown, graduating in 2026. His company, Nematex, describes itself as offering the first biological solution to sterilise root knot nematodes, a pest that attacks crop roots.
The approach is designed to be targeted and scalable. Nematex took second place and $15,000 at the 2026 Brown Venture Prize, and it’s the only finalist working on crop pests.
5. Teddy Nuttall And Manuel Dal Bo, Co-Founders Of HelpingHand Rx
Teddy Nuttall, who studied history, and Manuel Dal Bo, a computer engineering student, both graduated in 2026. Together, they built HelpingHand Rx, a mobile tool that works as a patient finance advocate and navigator for people struggling with prescription costs.
The company points to roughly 96 million Americans who struggle each year to afford their prescriptions. It won third place and $10,000 at the 2026 Brown Venture Prize, rounding out a podium across global health, agriculture and healthcare finance.
6. Theresia Gouw, Co-Founder Of Acrew Capital
Theresia Gouw studied engineering at Brown before doing an MBA at Stanford. She spent 15 years at Accel, rising to managing partner, then founded Aspect Ventures in 2014 and co-founded Acrew Capital in 2019 with Lauren Kolodny, Vishal Lugani, Asad Khaliq and Mark Kraynak.
Acrew has since launched the Diversify Capital Fund, a $300 million growth fund, alongside an approximately $380 million early-stage fund. Her earlier board work included Imperva, Trulia and HotelTonight.
7. Lisa Gelobter, Founder Of tEQuitable
Lisa Gelobter studied computer science at Brown, with a focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning. She worked on Shockwave, sat on the senior management team for Hulu’s launch and became Chief Digital Officer at BET Networks, before serving as Chief Digital Service Officer at the US Department of Education under President Obama.
In 2017 she founded tEQuitable, a confidential platform where employees can raise bias, harassment and discrimination issues. She’s one of the first 40 Black women to raise over $1 million in venture capital, and in March 2026 she became New York City’s Chief Technology Officer.
8. Lisa Caputo, Founder Of Women & Co.
Lisa Caputo studied political science and French at Brown, then journalism at Northwestern, before becoming press secretary to First Lady Hillary Clinton.
In 2000 she founded Women & Co. inside Citi, a membership business built around women’s financial needs, which accounted for $37 billion in assets, deposits and loans. She now leads marketing, communications and customer experience at Travelers and sits on the Best Buy board.
