Historic disruptions including climate change, wobbly geopolitics, shaky governance, snowballing healthcare costs and the rise of artificial intelligence present humanity with complex challenges. We believe such challenges can and will be solved when research excellence meets purposeful entrepreneurship, starting right here at UnBox.

Bar-Ilan boasts fifty-four departments in eight faculties: Engineering, Exact Sciences, Life Sciences, Social Sciences, Medical School, Law School, Humanities and Judaic Studies. Some of UnBox’s most exciting startups rise from interdisciplinary and multi-competence teams drawn from within and outside Bar-Ilan.

UnBox removes institutional barriers facing research founders. We invest personalized coaching, cool workspace, product-market fit funding, intellectual property clearance and tender loving care in research-based teams that want to change the world for the better by founding disruptive startups.

We inspire researchers, students and entrepreneurs to imagine startups that change the world for the better, and partner with those ready to operate outside comfort zones to move rapidly from idea to fundable startup.

Inspiration, “Entrepreneurship 101” program. The program lasts 13 weeks, 2 sessions per week: a methodical lecture by UnBox CEO Ariel Sella introducing each of the entrepreneurship success factors, and a personal case study presented by an serial entrepreneur or investor 

Creation, an intensive year-long practicum, leads select project teams from research idea to fundable startup along a proven Customer Development methodology with the aid of startup savvy mentors and initial funding.

Customer Development is the methodology at the core of the UnBox program. Layered on top of Eric Reis’s Lean Startup, Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas and Steve Blank’s Launchpad, Customer Development is an iterative process of product-market fit testing and pivoting on critical business model hypotheses.

The methodology works to rapidly define the right product for the right market at the right time, accurately and efficiently – before raising your seed round of investment. Surprisingly, it looks very much like the Scientific Method, except your experimental subjects are not mice but representative customers, whom you need to treat with true empathy.

The UnBox program follows the same methodology practiced at Y Combinator, leading U.S. accelerators and programs at research universities such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, Caltech and MIT. At Capsula Studio, coached by Ariel Sella (UnBox Ventures Founder and Managing Director) through this methodology, 15 startups have together raised more than $200 million over the past four years.

The “Entrepreneurship 101” program is open to teams that include principal investigators, doctoral students and/or research fellows and Alumni ready to operate outside comfort zones to pursue disruptive solutions for worthy global scale problem.

Selection criteria include big thinking, commitment, persistence, agility, low scientific risk and desire to engage with representative customers in the global market online and physically (Corona permitting). Existing intellectual property, e.g. patent application, is not a prerequisite.

UnBox startups will have an easier time raising their Seed Round because, following intensive Customer Validation in the global market, they will show investors key differences from first-time founder teams:

• Referenceable prospective customers in the global market confirming product-market fit;
• Deep marketplace knowledge resulting from tens of customer meetings;
• Key traits investors look for: leadership, persistence, customer empathy, agility.
• Confident operation outside comfort zones – the critical quality of successful founders.

UnBox provides each project entering  the Creation program with a pre-seed investment of $25,000 to be used solely for Customer Validation in the global market.

Bar-Ilan researchers (principal investigators, doctoral students, research fellows and lab employees) who are founders of UnBox startups are exempt from Bar-Ilan University’s Discoveries Bylaws (תקנון תגליות), and are encouraged to transfer any and all inventions, current and future, directly to their startup with no further demand by the university and its technology transfer office. Yes, this is revolutionary!

UnBox receives founding shares in your startup at a 20:80 ratio to research-founders, and a 5% equity holding upon the seed round of funding through a SAFE (Standard Agreement for Future Equity).

You can develop any type of startup as long as it shows potential for positive global impact. The domain where UnBox can add the greatest value to you is Healthcare in its sub-domains of body, mind, soul, society and environment.

Please send a message to Sigal Harel, Community Manager, sigal.harel@unbox.ventures, including information on your background and motivation, as well as LinkedIn address.