Gator Hatchery
UF’s student business accelerator, incubator, and dreammaker
You’ll encounter many uncertainties from the time you create a concept until it’s commercialized. As an application-based student business incubator, the Gator Hatchery empowers you during these early hurdles to help your venture unlock a new, exhilarating stage of growth.
Operated by the Warrington College of Business’ Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, the Gator Hatchery is open to all University of Florida students: on campus and online and undergraduate through Ph.D. levels.
Once you’re in, you’ll find a driven community of entrepreneurs — from budding students to established startup founders — who believe in and cheer on your ideas at weekly meetings, as mentors, and during pitch sessions.
Interested in joining? Learn more about what to expect and all the resources available to you.
Why join the Gator Hatchery incubator?
Got an idea? We’ve got the facilities, guidance, and funding opportunities to turn it into a business plan, a product, and a profitable entity.
Business facilities
The Hatchery provides a free co-working space, office equipment, and a conference room — perfect for research sessions, client meetings, presentation preparation, and more collaborative, growth-oriented activities.
Resources
Everything the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center offers is extended to Hatchery participants, including a network of alumni companies and other influential individuals interested in hearing your pitch.
Networking
UF is home to a bright, buzzing community of student and alumni entrepreneurs. Weekly meetings and workshops let you engage with them, talk through your ideas, and discover how others in your position grapple with common early-stage challenges.
All are welcome
Developed an app as a high schooler and want to vault its visibility? Scanning the market to address a gap through a much-needed service? Whatever the stage of your business, the Hatchery invites you to apply!
Everything an early-stage venture needs
Let your fledgling enterprise take full flight through funding, potential investment opportunities, expert mentorship, and other key resources for entering your next stage.
Our services
The Gator Hatchery supports UF student-created and managed companies at any stage in their launch journey. We offer assistance for all of these phases:
Ideation
This is the time for design thinking. Companies start by identifying a problem and work through it to find the best solution and explore product/market fit.
Incubation
Students take the solution to a problem and turn it into something that can become a company. This step includes business modeling and business planning.
Acceleration
After the company is created, students learn how to accelerate it into a larger entity. Here, we assist in designing corporate structure and increasing market visibility.
Networking and connection to resources
We give students the opportunity to rub shoulders with subject matter experts and prominent entrepreneurs. Our residents find mentors, fellow founders, partners, first employees, industry connections, and even their first investors during their time in the Gator Hatchery.
Education
The Gator Hatchery’s main mission is educational. Not all residents who enter will create a successful business. However, through experiential learning and expert guidance, they leave prepared to tackle any challenge that may come their way in the future.
Apply to the Hatchery
MS in Entrepreneurship students in the Launcher track are automatically admitted to the Hatchery. For all other interested participants, passing the application process awards you a residency for one year. In exchange for the support received from the Hatchery and the center, residents must meet their agreed-upon milestones to move their businesses forward.
Resources for student entrepreneurs
Make a business plan that keeps them hooked. Turn your concept into CAD drawings and a functional prototype. Or give your idea an audience (and gain some funding) by entering one of UF’s pitch competitions.
Ventures from current students and recent graduates
Here’s an introduction to our diverse on-campus startup ecosystem.
Cordelia Biosciences
Sustainable chemical development that harnesses the ocean’s natural resources
StopSafe App
An AI-powered copilot for legal assistance at traffic stops
siloD
A social commerce hub
UF Pawsthetics
3-D printed prosthetics for pets
Ventures from UF alumni
Market-disrupting services and scientific discoveries all start at the Hatchery before growing and thriving past graduation.
Student perspective
The Hatchery has helped us take a step back and look at every aspect of the business operation, from start to finish … I’d recommend [the program] to any student who has a business idea and wants to see it start.”
Andrew Reynolds (BSBA ’24, MIB ’25)
Founder of siloD
Partner with the Hatchery
Every startup founder needs a mentor. Being a Hatchery partner allows you to fill that role, whether you’re speaking entrepreneur to entrepreneur, offering legal or financial advice, or providing funding.
Go from student to startup founder
Arrive with an idea. Leave with a business you can call your own.