Clerx Named a Finalist in the 2026 Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Startup World Cup Regional

We are proud to share another exciting milestone for Clerx.

Clerx has been selected as one of 13 finalists for the 2026 Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Startup World Cup Regional, taking place September 24 at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Clerx co-founder and CEO Michael Brunman, Harvard Business School MBA '23, will take the stage to represent the company and the growing role of AI in modern law firm operations.

The regional brings together Harvard alumni founders from across the university who are building companies in healthcare, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, climate, robotics, defense technology, enterprise software, and consumer innovation. Clerx was selected from what Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs described as an exceptionally competitive field of alumni-founded companies.

One company will advance from Boston to the Startup World Cup Global Finals in San Francisco, where regional winners from around the world will compete for the opportunity to receive a $1 million investment from Pegasus Tech Ventures.

For Clerx, being part of this group is an honor in itself.

An exceptional group of Harvard founders

What makes this recognition particularly meaningful is the quality and range of the companies taking the stage alongside Clerx.

The 2026 finalist class brings together founders working on some remarkably ambitious problems:

• 4M Therapeutics, founded by Pablo Lapuerta and Dr. Stephen J. Haggarty, is developing safer medicines for mental health.
• Avix Medical, led by Aditya Ranganathan, is working on earlier and faster cancer detection.
• Checkups Cova, founded by Moka Lantum, is building WhatsApp-based health wallets for Africa.
• Enolytics, co-founded by Cathy Huyghe, brings data analytics to the global wine industry.
• Robot On Rails, founded by Jill Becker, is developing autonomous AI-powered wet labs.
• SeeAir, led by Piers MacNaughton, is using AI to help create healthier, more sustainable homes.
• Shopperoo, founded by Namrata Singhal and Rohit Singhal, applies AI to retail assortment and pricing.
• Skribe Medical, founded by Ryan Neely, is developing wearable cardiac screening technology for cancer patients.
• smartSTAT, led by Rohan Bajaj, provides live data designed to improve hospital emergency readiness.
• Suyana Climate Insurance, founded by Fernando Yu and Rodrigo Garcia Ayala, is developing climate insurance solutions for Latin America.
• Target Arm Inc., led by Jeffrey McChesney, is building technology for autonomous drone launch and recovery.
• Zinit, founded by Stanislav Moskovtsev, is building an AI-native procurement platform.

It is an impressive group spanning medicine, climate resilience, robotics, enterprise software, consumer technology, and AI.

And among them, Clerx is representing a problem we care deeply about: helping law firms operate and grow more effectively.

Representing the future of law firm operations

Clerx was selected for its work building AI agents for law firm intake.

That description captures where Clerx began, but the vision behind it is broader.

Law firms invest heavily in great attorneys, sophisticated technology, marketing, and client service. Yet one of the most important parts of the business still happens at the very beginning: when somebody first reaches out for help.

That interaction may happen by phone, website chat, SMS, email, or another channel. It may happen at 2 PM while the team is busy with clients, or at 10 PM when nobody is in the office.

Clerx helps law firms make that first stage more responsive and structured, from answering inquiries and collecting information to qualification, consultation scheduling, and connecting intake with the systems the firm already uses.

It is the same philosophy behind our work on why intake is more than a phone function, how AI intake helps law firms scale, and the broader law firm intake process.

As Clerx has expanded across calls, website chat, SMS, scheduling, and legal technology integrations, the underlying goal has remained consistent: make it easier to build, run, and grow a modern law firm, so lawyers can spend more of their time serving clients and less of it managing the operational complexity around them.

A meaningful return to Harvard

The competition also carries special meaning for Michael personally.

Harvard Business School played an important role in his path toward entrepreneurship. Years later, returning to Boston to represent Clerx on a Harvard stage makes this milestone particularly special.

But the achievement belongs to far more than one founder.

It reflects the work Michael and co-founder and CTO Eldar Damari have put into building Clerx, the team behind the product, the law firms that trust Clerx with their intake every day, and the legal technology partners that have helped Clerx become increasingly connected to the systems firms already use.

The recognition also follows another recent milestone for Michael, who was featured by TechRound among ten Harvard alumni founders across industries including technology, finance, healthcare, and entrepreneurship.

Together, these moments reinforce something we are especially proud of: legal technology and law firm operations belong in the broader conversation about how AI can reshape professional services.

Boston, September 24

The HAE Startup World Cup Regional takes place September 24 at the Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School in Boston, bringing together the finalists, investors, operators, founders, and members of the Harvard entrepreneurial community.

One of the 13 companies will leave Boston with a ticket to the Startup World Cup Global Finals in San Francisco.

Whatever happens on stage, we are proud that Clerx will be there.

Congratulations to Michael, Eldar, the Clerx team, and everyone who has helped build the company to this point. And congratulations to 4M Therapeutics, Avix Medical, Checkups Cova, Enolytics, Robot On Rails, SeeAir, Shopperoo, Skribe Medical, smartSTAT, Suyana Climate Insurance, Target Arm, and Zinit and their founders.

We are honored to share the stage with you.

Meet the 2026 HAE Startup World Cup finalists

And if you want to learn more about what Clerx is building for law firms, explore the Clerx blog or book a short demo.