Peter Boyce II

Founded

As an undergraduate Boyce co-founded HackHarvard, an on-campus accelerator, and Harvard Ventures, a student entrepreneurship and alumni-mentor community. A HackHarvard demo-day company, PollVaultr, entered Y Combinator and helped inspire a more systematic funding platform for student founders.

Education

Boyce entered Harvard imagining theoretical physics, then shifted toward technology and entrepreneurship. He cites the paper 'Whom You Know Matters: Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance' as a durable intellectual basis for cultivating diverse networks. Harvard identifies him as class of 2013 and Mather House; he took a year away and returned with a stronger bridge between academic and professional life. Boyce publicly identifies as a Ron Brown Scholar. He told Harvard that financial aid and a scholarship funded by Lloyd Blankfein made attendance possible, informing his later emphasis on widening access to startup capital.

Communities

Boyce's current public service spans contemporary-art institutions, Harvard fundraising and entrepreneurship, the Ron Brown Scholar community and Tech:NYC. His personal bio also lists emeritus roles with Stuyvesant's alumni association, AMANDA+JAMES, Harvard in Tech, Code Nation and MIT Sandbox.

Awards

Forbes named Boyce and Nitesh Banta to its 2015 Venture Capital 30 Under 30 list, crediting RDV with checks of up to $25,000 and reporting that 30 backed startups had subsequently raised $70 million. No verified Forbes Midas or Crain's 40 Under 40 award was found.

More

Boyce says he grew up in Washington Heights, loved astronomy and physics, attended science camps, found an early electronic typewriter-like device on the street, became a computer power user, built and sold computers, modded Xboxes and helped neighbors with technology. He credits his parents' example and education as a path to opportunity without publishing their names or a detailed family history. Forbes called Boyce 24 in January 2015 and a 2020 first-person productivity profile called him 30, placing birth around 1990. No authoritative full birth date was found, so the dossier does not assert one. Boyce's original three-part design addressed student founders' lack of early capital, practical company-building mentorship and a cross-campus peer network. Early RDV used student fellows, weekly pitches, rapid decisions and founder-friendly convertible notes of up to $25,000; by 2021 Boyce described a wider $25,000-$250,000 range and more than 250 companies. Current biographies cite more than 275. Boyce spent much of senior year in GC's office architecting RDV, then joined the firm after graduation to continue the program and help create a full-time New York presence. This is a direct Harvard-to-RDV-to-GC chronology rather than a conventional banking or consulting path. GC's promotion announcement credited Boyce with broadening access for first-time founders, building RDV, establishing the New York presence, and supporting recruiting, boards, brand and later financings for Mark43, Ro, Great Jones and Cadre. Boyce left GC after eight years and formed Stellation in 2021. TechCrunch reported an offering target of up to $40 million; Stellation's brand partner later said Fund I closed at $40 million. Boyce cited founder-founder empathy, adding to New York's venture ecosystem, following GC founders David Fialkow and Joel Cutler, seeking a steep learning curve, LP and peer-manager advice, and the COVID crisis as catalysts. A July 19, 2023 Form D identifies Stellation Capital II, LP, Boyce as managing member of its general partner, and a $50 million total offering. The filing is proof of an offering, not proof of a final close or deployed amount; public institutional directories still described Fund II as in market. Boyce says he was a first-check investor in student founders Ari Weinstein and Conrad Kramer under GC after meeting them through HackMIT. Apple acquired Workflow in 2017 and made it the basis for Shortcuts. The company had raised a small institutional seed round including GC; deal terms and Boyce economics were undisclosed. Stellation backed Weinstein, Kramer and Kim Beverett's Software Applications Incorporated as an early Fund I position. OpenAI acquired the maker of Sky in October 2025 and hired the team. OpenAI disclosed an Altman-associated fund's passive interest and independent board approval; no concern was attributed to Boyce or Stellation. No reviewed primary or reputable source identified a realized Stellation write-off. Block Party, however, was forced to pivot after Twitter/X began charging prices the startup could not afford for API access; it later built cross-platform privacy tools and was acquired by DeleteMe. This is a documented operating challenge and eventual strategic exit, not evidence of a total loss. In a first-person profile Boyce described a relationship Airtable, paper notebooks, a color-coded calendar, Notion planning, Feedly, shared restaurant maps and extensive Goodreads lists. He reported reading 55 books in 2019, waking early for audiobooks, enjoying art and food, and living with a dog. His own public reading list foregrounds Black literature, art, science and science fiction.

From Peter's own website — common ground for a warm intro.