Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday and Lauren Holiday are putting another $1 million into their Boston Accelerator Fund, a fresh round of backing that will support a second cohort of entrepreneurs and creators in Greater Boston. The move extends a partnership that began a few months after the Celtics’ championship run and has kept moving even after Holiday left Boston in May.
The original Boston Creator Accelerator gave 10 creators $1 million in grants and added mentorship, resources and direct access to Brown and the Holidays. It also invested in 10 startups in its first year, including Future Master Chess Academy, Little Cocoa Bean Company, PYNRS and Everybody Gotta Eat. For Lawyer Times, the funding was enough to quit a day job and focus full time on Future Masters Chess Academy.
The Holiday family’s involvement has not been limited to Boston. Since launching in 2020, the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Foundation has worked in five cities — Los Angeles, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Milwaukee and Boston — and in its first four years awarded grants of $25,000 to $50,000 to more than 150 Black-owned businesses and charities. That track record is part of why Brown said last season that some other players are advised not to get involved for reasons he did not know, but that “Jrue and Lauren Holiday are great people” and “they’ve been doing this everywhere they go.”
Holiday spent two years in Boston and was a key part of the Celtics’ 2024 championship run, but the philanthropic work never stopped when his on-court time there ended. He and Lauren Holiday moved to Portland after he was traded from the Celtics to the Trail Blazers in May, yet the accelerator keeps expanding in the city where his basketball chapter ended. The question now is whether that model can keep drawing entrepreneurs, creators and money at the same pace without the full-time presence of one of the NBA’s most recognizable backers.
