An HBS-Born Startup Supports the Stage That Shaped It
Updated: Apr 11, 2025
Juno and HBS Show join forces to celebrate community and creativity.
In 2018, a casual group chat among newly admitted HBS students sparked a quiet revolution in student lending.
Two incoming MBA candidates, Chris Abkarians and Nikhil Agarwal, were facing the same question confronting many of their classmates: how to finance a graduate education without getting buried under high-interest debt. Inspired by a small cohort of Israeli students who had successfully negotiated better rates as a collective, Chris and Nikhil wondered: could the same model work here?
They started small. “We pitched the basic business model in that chat,” Nikhil recalls. “Most banks weren’t interested in talking to us. The few that were said 70 people wasn’t enough. If you have 500, maybe.” So the duo rallied their peers, reaching out to other top business schools. Within 10 days, 700 students had signed up. The lenders took notice. And Juno, originally a scrappy experiment, was born.
Today, Juno has grown into a national platform serving more than 200,000 students and professionals, collectively negotiating over $1 billion in student loans. Rather than issuing loans directly, the startup works behind the scenes, brokering deals on behalf of its members with a singular goal: to make borrowing more affordable.
That same spirit of collaboration and community that shaped Juno’s founding is alive and well at HBS today, and this spring, it’s taking the form of an unexpected partnership. Juno is teaming up with the HBS Show to help bring this year’s production to life and support the student body in an entirely new way.
At first glance, a fintech startup and a campus musical may seem like unlikely collaborators. But to Chris and Nikhil, it makes perfect sense.
“The community at HBS is what helped us launch Juno,” Chris says. “The people you meet here — your section-mates, classmates, professors — open your eyes to paths you never thought about. Supporting the HBS Show is a way to give back to that same community and celebrate the broader experience of being here.”
That broader experience — the “everything outside the classroom,” as Chris puts it — was instrumental in Juno’s success. The startup incubated in the Harvard Innovation Lab, relied on Harvard Law School students for early legal support, and benefited from faculty mentorship, including one memorable session with a world-renowned negotiation expert who offered strategic advice on structuring Juno’s latest deal.
“The i-lab turned out to be more impactful than we ever expected,” Chris reflects. “It showed us there was another way forward beyond formal recruitment — a different path that others were walking too.”
Today, Juno continues to walk that path, negotiating better loan terms for students across the country. But its roots are unmistakably HBS, and with its latest partnership, that connection is only growing deeper.
As a thank-you to the current generation of students, Juno is offering to cover the cost of tickets to the HBS Show. Attendees simply need to visit joinjuno.com/show to watch a short video and then take a quick quiz. It’s a small gesture with a big message: we see you, and we’re here to help.
In an age where conversations about business school often revolve around ROI, Juno’s story is a reminder that sometimes, the most valuable outcomes aren’t found in spreadsheets. They’re sparked in chats, nurtured in late-night brainstorms, and brought to life onstage.
The HBS Show runs from April 15 to April 17, and thanks to Juno, it’s one more way to celebrate the community that makes business school more than just a degree.
Note: Tickets will be refunded a few days after the last show. Got any questions? Send Juno a note at hello@joinjuno.com.
Michelle Yu (MBA ‘26) is passionate about all things media, with experience in business news, documentary film, broadcast journalism, and television. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Film and Media Studies and worked for CNBC, NBC News, and CNN prior to HBS, along with projects for HBO, Showtime, Oxygen, and Spectrum.
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