{shortcode-3caaa4d1e0e11dbc50ae1dd7695fddeac7a89678}
Kevin O’Leary — the investor known for starring in the television show “Shark Tank” — judged six teams of Harvard students on their startup pitches at a Harvard Business School event on Monday, awarding the winning team $200,000 in total funding.
The event was hosted by the HBS Entrepreneurship Club in Klarman Auditorium. Harvard affiliates filled the 1,000-seat space to watch O’Leary, known by his nickname “Mr. Wonderful” on television, judge the event for the third time.
O’Leary was joined by HBS alums Janelle Teng, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and C.L. Oliver Haarman, a founding partner of Searchlight Capital Partners. HBS senior lecturer Reza R. Satchu moderated the event.
The competition consisted of three rounds, during which students presented different aspects of their pitches and were grilled on their ideas by the judges. Each round, teams were eliminated until they selected one winner.
SmartSTAT, a startup that produces hospital code carts that automatically track their inventories of medical supplies, won the top votes of all three judges. The audience also voted SmartSTAT as the best contender, awarding the startup an additional $50,000. Haarman personally provided an extra $50,000 of funding to SmartSTAT, making their total earnings from the event $200,000.
The company — which was founded by Rohan P. Bajaj and Tara Jain ’15, both affiliates of Harvard Medical School and the Business School — has already been gaining traction. Fourteen hospitals in the Boston area have expressed interest in SmartSTAT carts, Bajaj said.
But Bajaj added that winning the competition — and the $200,000 in total grants — would help accelerate the launch of their startup.
“It’s hard to convey the enthusiasm that hospitals have had every time we describe this product,” said Bajaj, who is currently pursuing his master’s in business administration at HBS. “To make it here and actually get some funding to make it a reality is just unreal.”
Another contender, Arul Health, which provides mental health tools and therapy to cancer patients and survivors, had an undergraduate student on its team. Eshan Vishwakarma ’26, whose pitch was eliminated by the judges in the first round, said he and his team were not discouraged by the loss and would continue pursuing the startup.
“We’re gonna keep building. We have incredible traction,” he said. “We’re partnering with some pretty big oncology centers, like Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, so we’re really excited to keep building.”
O’Leary, whose son Trevor O’Leary enrolled at the Business School in 2025, said in an interview with The Crimson before the event that he believed an HBS education has only become more valuable in recent years.
“It didn’t interest me very much to come here in the past, when two thirds of the class wanted to be consultants, because I think that’s a waste of time – really making no decisions of consequence in your life, and then you live in a sea of mediocrity floating around, and eventually go to consulting hell when you die,” O’Leary said.
But that focus on entering the consulting industry, he said, has shifted at HBS recently.
“They’ve figured out that they have to go in a new direction and start to produce individuals who create jobs, which is how you grow an economy.” O’Leary said. “That’s very interesting, because that’s what I do. So that’s a whole new ball game.”
O’Leary and Satchu, the HBS professor who moderated the event, also waded into the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Harvard during the interview. Satchu commended O’Leary for defending Harvard against White House threats on the University’s ability to enroll international students in an interview with Fox Business News in May. A federal judge halted the effort in June.
“There was no one else — especially who was playing to the Republican base — that was on Fox News saying that Trump got Harvard wrong and protected Harvard,” Satchu said. “I think that’s an important part here that people don’t recognize.”
Though O’Leary has publicly supported many of Donald Trump’s policies, he said Harvard — like any good business — benefits from having people from around the globe contribute to the institution.
“You’re getting an institution that spends a lot of time and money curating individuals from all over the planet,” O’Leary said. “But the point is, they are the best and the brightest, and so why in the world would you want to change that?”
“Why be in any way shackled by policy that doesn’t get you the brightest possible candidates you can get – regardless of where they come from? Who cares? I mean, there’s no monopoly on great thinkers,” he added.
—Staff writer Evan H.C. Epstein can be reached at evan.epstein@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X at @Evan_HC_Epstein.
—Staff writer Graham W. Lee can be reached at graham.lee@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @grahamwonlee.
