Start-up Vaxess Technologies was founded by four Harvard University students from different corners­ of the school’s vast campus who met only when each checked out a class at the university’s new Innovation Lab.

The fall 2011 course was on commercializing science, and the four principals joined forces to build a business around a new technology to stabilize vaccines so they don’t need to be refrigerated during delivery. Since then, they have regularly used the i-lab to develop the business, taking in workshops and talks from visiting entrepreneurs, even using it as a base from which to raise money.