Shawn Gaetano ’20 (iSchool), LaunchPad alum and founder of Solace Vision, a no-code, text-to-3D virtual creation platform, becomes the fourth Syracuse University startup to be accepted into a highly competitive Techstars LA Music Accelerator. Techstars Music invests in founders who use technology to innovate the future of music, and support the cultures surrounding it. He will be showcasing his venture at Techstars LA Summit Demo Day in LA from Wednesday, April 20 to Sunday, April 24. He will also be featured at Techstars NYC Summit Demo Day in NYC from Wednesday, April 27 to Saturday, April 30.
Techstars Music Accelerator is a mentorship-driven accelerator program that partners with some of music’s biggest companies, such as Warner Music Group, Sony, Concord, Bill Silva Entertainment, Silva Artist Management, RecoChoku, Royalty Exchange, Q Prime Management, and others to discover, vet and develop innovative startups. Each year, after reviewing hundreds of applicants, only nine or 10 are after a six-month, global search. The cohort typically includes innovative applications of artificial intelligence, on-demand manufacturing, augmented reality, music-assisted learning, interactive video, and online music creation.
Other Syracuse student startups to have been accepted into the hyper-competitive Techstars network include SparkCharge (Techstars Boston), PowerSpike (Techstars Atlanta) and CLLCTVE (Techstars LA). The program comes with an equity-based investment, powering the ventures with significant funds to create traction for their early-stage companies.
Solace Vision allows users to type in a few words and create vast virtual worlds, objects, entire games, and more.
Shawn got his start with Solace Visions as part of Syracuse University’s 2020 SummerStart LaunchPad Accelerator where he won a $500 prize to take his idea to the next level during the pandemic. From there, he went on to win other 2020 – 2021 campus competitions and took home a top honor in the U.S.-Western NY regionals of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA).
As he developed his venture roadmap, he was selected for a spring 2021 LaunchPad & Techstars Fellowship – one of more than 125 nominations from across the entire global network to be selected for the elite program. He received a $5,000 Fellowship grant to support time working on his venture, and worked closely with Blackstone LaunchPad & Techstars mentors, as well as Linda Dickerson Hartsock, Syracuse’s LaunchPad director. He was part of a cohort developing solutions in AI, VR, cloud, and blockchain technology to solve some of today’s pressing issues.
As a student, beyond building his venture, he was director of NEXIS, a student run research organization based on emerging technologies. Solace Vision originated in NEXIS working with researchers and faculty there and was also a technology services support specialist from the Whitman School of Management.
Solace Vision is a no-code, text-to-3D virtual creation platform. Type in a few words and create vast virtual worlds, objects, entire games, and more. Shawn recently completed integrated API development and will soon be launching into an official pre-seed round to scale the team and hit other product milestones leading to revenue generation.
Shawn remains active with the LaunchPad as a mentor and business plan competition judge.