There are other places at MIT with a similar vibe. Media Lab springs to mind.
I took a class co-taught by TBL called Linked Data Ventures (6.898). There was an effort to seed a Semantic Web startup ecosystem with project teams formed in the class. IIRC one of the groups did get funded and was eventually acquired, but not using Semantic Web/Linked Data.
Regardless, it was an amazing experience having TBL review our little demo app.