Skip to content
Partnerships

Partner With Us

Playground Lab connects forward-thinking organizations with top university talent, building real products, real pipelines, and real outcomes. Whether you’re a company looking to innovate or a university placing your best students, there’s a seat at the table.

16-week
Build cycles
8+
Disciplines per cohort
Cohorts per year
100%
Ship working software
For Businesses

Put a team of builders on your challenge

Playground Lab gives companies a rare opportunity: a cross-disciplinary team of top university students building real products under professional mentorship, with your priorities in the driver’s seat.

Sponsor a challenge

Point a cohort at a real problem and gain first access to the innovation, insights, and prototype output built during the semester.

Talent pipeline

First-look access to a pre-vetted, cross-disciplinary cohort ready for internships, contracts, and full-time roles.

Low-risk R&D

Test new product ideas through our incubator without committing internal engineering resources or operational overhead.

Founding-partner recognition

Be recognized across Playground Lab’s growing network of universities, press, and launch events.

Ways to partner

Every partnership is scoped to fit. These are starting points, not a menu. We shape the engagement around your goals.

Seed

A first look

  • Logo placement & recognition
  • Cohort demo day access
  • Talent portfolio review
Most chosen

Venture

A dedicated build

  • Everything in Seed
  • A dedicated cohort project
  • Weekly progress briefings
  • Prototype & codebase access

Founding

A long-term collaboration

  • Everything in Venture
  • Advisory input on program direction
  • Multi-semester roadmap
  • Co-created challenge series
For Universities

Place your best students in real product teams

We partner with universities across disciplines to give students a semester-long, fully-mentored incubator experience that turns classroom knowledge into shipped products and real professional networks.

Experiential learning

A semester-long, real-world tech experience, from idea to shipped product.

Placement outcomes

Strengthen graduate placement stats with documented, industry-partnered product experience.

Industry access

Connect your programs to tech mentors, sponsors, and founders across SF and South Florida.

Co-branded recognition

Partner universities are featured on all cohort launches, press announcements, and demo days.

Disciplines we recruit from

  • Computer Science & Software Engineering
  • Information Science & Data
  • Business & Entrepreneurship
  • Product Design & UX
  • Marketing, Growth & Social Media
  • Policy, Legal & Ethics

Let’s scope a first challenge together.

A 30-minute conversation to find the right problem for your first cohort.

Start a conversation