Market Shaping Accelerator

What Market Shaping Accelerator does

The Market Shaping Accelerator (MSA) is an academic research and policy center launched in May 2023 as a collaboration among the University of Chicago, the Center for Global Development (CGD), and Dartmouth College. It is housed at the University of Chicago and led by Founding Faculty Director Rachel Glennerster (also President of CGD), Co-Faculty Directors Michael Kremer (2019 Nobel Laureate, UChicago) and Christopher Snyder (Dartmouth), and Director Leah Rosenzweig (CGD Senior Fellow), with an advisor network that includes 2014 Nobel Laureate Jean Tirole and economists from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Duke.

MSA designs and advocates for "pull" mechanisms—Advance Market Commitments (AMCs), prizes, milestone contracts, and procurement and standards instruments—that align commercial incentives with social value when market forces alone underdeliver innovation. Its primary programmatic offering is the MSA Innovation Challenge, an open competition launched in 2023 with up to $2,000,000 in total prizes across two phases; the inaugural cycle received 186 applications and named 39 winners from 16 countries, with three overall winners announced in September 2024 covering broad-spectrum antivirals (SPRIND), AMR diagnostics for neonatal sepsis (AMR Funding Circle), and repurposing generic drugs (Duke Margolis). MSA also convenes working groups and coalitions, including a neonatal sepsis diagnostics AMC working group with CGD and an enteric methane vaccine AMC consortium with Spark Climate Solutions, Global Methane Hub, and The Nature Conservancy.

MSA is not a commercial enterprise. It is funded through the University of Chicago's institutional framework, philanthropy (Ken Griffin and Eric Schmidt have been named as backers in press coverage), and partnerships with multilaterals and philanthropies. Its outputs are research, policy memos, convenings, and prize-funded mechanism designs aimed at accelerating adoption of market shaping instruments by governments, multilateral institutions, and philanthropies addressing climate change and pandemic preparedness.

Name

Market Shaping Accelerator

Legal name

Market Shaping Accelerator at the University of Chicago

Website

https://marketshaping.uchicago.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

The Market Shaping Accelerator is a University of Chicago-affiliated academic research and policy center, founded in 2023 with the Center for Global Development and Dartmouth, that designs pull mechanisms such as Advance Market Commitments to accelerate climate and pandemic preparedness innovation for governments, multilateral institutions, and philanthropies.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Market Shaping Policy Research

NAICS

Scientific Research and Development Services (5417)

SIC

Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)

akta.pro primary industry

Accelerators & Incubators (Investor-Operated) (FSANAAAM)

akta.pro secondary industries

Corporate Accelerators & Startup Programs (FSANAHAD), Climate Finance, Carbon Markets & MRV Systems (BPADALAB)

Keywords

• Market shaping instruments
• Pull mechanism design
• Advance market commitments
• Innovation policy research
• Prize-based innovation challenges

Headquarters

HQ city

Chicago

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Institutional Funding and Grants: The accelerator operates as a University of Chicago-affiliated research center, funded through institutional partnerships, philanthropy, and potentially government/development agency grants. The 2023 Innovation Challenge offered up to $2,000,000 in total prizes, funded through the accelerator's resources.
2. Prize-Based Innovation Challenge: The MSA Innovation Challenge awards prizes to winning teams that develop high-impact market shaping proposals. Phase I awards $4,000 per submission (up to $500,000 total), Phase II provides additional financial support and up to $1.5 million in aggregate final prizes.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

The Market Shaping Accelerator is an academic research and policy center that designs, advances, and promotes market shaping mechanisms—particularly pull mechanisms such as Advance Market Commitments (AMCs), prizes, milestone contracts, and procurement/standards instruments—to accelerate innovation in climate change mitigation/adaptation and pandemic preparedness. Its flagship offering is the MSA Innovation Challenge, an open competition awarding up to $2,000,000 in prizes to teams that develop high-impact market shaping proposals, supported by working groups, policy research, and educational resources.

Product overview

Market Shaping Accelerator is a research and policy organization (not a software product company) that operates as a collaborative initiative between the University of Chicago, the Center for Global Development, and Dartmouth College. Its core offerings include the MSA Innovation Challenge (an open competition awarding up to $2 million for market shaping proposals), focused research programs on Climate Change and Pandemic Preparedness, working groups such as the Neonatal Sepsis AMC Working Group, and educational resources including a market shaping glossary and academic publications. The organization does not offer a software product but rather provides policy frameworks, pull mechanism designs, and convenes expert networks to address market failures in innovation incentives.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• MSA Innovation Challenge An open, two-phase innovation competition that surfaces high-impact market shaping proposals to address climate change and pandemic preparedness. Phase I awards $4,000 per submission (up to $500,000 total) across 39 winning teams; Phase II provides additional financial support and up to $1.5 million in aggregate final prizes. Top ideas receive MSA support in fundraising for multi-million or billion-dollar pull mechanisms. Designed for governments, multilateral institutions, philanthropies, and the broader innovation community.
• Neonatal Sepsis AMC Working Group A collaborative working group convened by the Center for Global Development and the Market Shaping Accelerator to design an advance market commitment for rapid diagnostic tests targeting neonatal sepsis in low- and middle-income countries. The working group brings together stakeholders to develop and implement market shaping mechanisms addressing a defined global health challenge.
• Climate Change Market Shaping Programs Research and policy program focused on designing market shaping mechanisms for climate change mitigation and adaptation, including carbon removal, green steel, clean cooling, climate-resilient crops, and enteric methane reduction. Targets governments, multilateral institutions, and philanthropies seeking to accelerate green innovation where commercial incentives trail social value.
• Pandemic Preparedness Market Shaping Programs Research and policy program focused on designing market shaping mechanisms for pandemic preparedness, including broad-spectrum antivirals, universal coronavirus vaccines, intranasal coronavirus vaccines, antimicrobial resistance diagnostics, drug repurposing, and early detection systems. Targets governments, multilateral institutions, and philanthropies seeking to spur innovation where commercial returns lag social value.

Quantifiable outcome

• The pneumococcal AMC led to 3 vaccines, hundreds of millions of doses delivered, and estimated 700,000 lives saved
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• University of ChicagocoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Market Shaping Accelerator is housed at and hosted by the University of Chicago. The accelerator leverages UChicago's academic resources and faculty expertise in economics and policy research.
• Center for Global Development (CGD)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMSA is a collaboration among CGD, UChicago, and Dartmouth College. Faculty directors include CGD leadership. CGD working groups on issues like neonatal sepsis AMC are jointly convened with MSA.
• Dartmouth CollegecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMSA is a collaboration among CGD, UChicago, and Dartmouth College. Faculty Director Christopher Snyder is from Dartmouth College.
• Spark Climate SolutionscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnering with Spark Climate Solutions consortium to develop an AMC for enteric methane vaccines. The consortium also includes Global Methane Hub and The Nature Conservancy.
• Global Methane HubcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of the consortium with Spark Climate Solutions working on enteric methane AMC development.
• The Nature ConservancycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of the consortium with Spark Climate Solutions working on enteric methane AMC development.
• GaviminorOthersReference organization - the pneumococcal AMC was launched through Gavi. MSA draws on Gavi's experience with AMCs as a model for current work.
• Frontier ClimateminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerReference organization - Frontier, led by Stripe, is an AMC to accelerate carbon removal. MSA draws on this as an example of current AMC implementation. MSA advisor Nan Ransohoff leads Frontier.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health): US government agency funding breakthrough health R&D through milestone-based contracts and pull mechanisms, conceptually aligned with MSA's focus on incentive design for innovations where commercial markets underdeliver.
• Climate-KIC: Europe's largest climate innovation initiative, operating innovation challenges and accelerator programs that overlap with MSA's climate change focus area and pull mechanism design mandate.
• Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance: Launched and administered the original Pneumococcal AMC that MSA's founders helped design; Gavi is the established institutional model for executing large-scale vaccine pull mechanisms globally.
• CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations): Funds and coordinates vaccine development for pandemic preparedness, overlapping directly with MSA's pandemic preparedness focus area on broad-spectrum antivirals and universal coronavirus vaccines.

Emerging players

• Nesta: A UK-based innovation foundation that designs challenge prizes and innovation programs for social and environmental impact, overlapping with MSA's challenge prize and policy design approach.
• Duke Margolis Institute for Health Policy: An MSA Innovation Challenge winner (Repurposing Generic Drugs proposal) and academic policy research center, comparable to MSA in its combination of policy research and applied mechanism design for global health.

Direct peers

• Center for Global Development: A core collaborating institution on MSA; both operate at the intersection of economics research and global development policy, sharing faculty directors and convening joint working groups such as the neonatal sepsis AMC working group.
• XPRIZE Foundation: Operates large-scale incentive prize competitions to spur breakthrough innovation, structurally similar to MSA's Innovation Challenge model of using prizes to surface and fund high-impact ideas.
• Spark Climate Solutions: Active partner on the enteric methane vaccine AMC; Spark convenes a coalition focused on designing and deploying market shaping mechanisms for climate interventions, directly comparable to MSA's climate work.
• Stripe Frontier: Operates one of the most prominent existing Advance Market Commitments for carbon removal, directly implementing the type of pull mechanism that MSA designs and advocates for, with MSA advisor Nan Ransohoff at the helm.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/UChi_MSA
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/market-shaping-accelerator

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Market Shaping Accelerator