Eligibility
TEAMS
Teams may have up to five (5) members. At least one (1) graduate-level business school student must be a member of the venture team. This includes MBA, executive MBA, and other master’s and Ph.D. level business students. Undergraduate and graduate students from any discipline may be part of the team. Non-students may also be part of the venture and its planning activities. However, only students may participate in presentations at the competition.
Eligible students include those currently enrolled as well as students who have graduated within one (1) year of the competition event. Teams are encouraged to bring a faculty or staff adviser. The adviser may not assist the team directly during presentations. There is no limit to the number of submissions from any given school.
Teams are free to enter other business plan competitions.
PLANS
The competition is for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up or early stage.
Generally excluded are the following:
Buy-outs, expansions of existing companies, real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area, spin-outs from existing corporations.
The licensing from universities or research labs of technologies that have not been previously commercialized is not excluded and is encouraged.
The competition is for student-created, managed and owned ventures. In other words, students are to have played a major role in conceiving the venture, to have key management roles, and to own significant equity (i.e. 20% or more). One objective of this rule is to exclude ventures formed and managed by non-students who have given token equity to MBAs for writing their business plan.
Ventures with revenues in prior academic years are excluded. However, team members may have worked on an idea or new technology in previous years, provided that the venture had no revenues.
The business plan must represent the original work of members of the team, and be prepared under faculty supervision; ideally, the business plan will be prepared for credit in a regularly scheduled course or as an independent study.
The business may not have received any venture capital financing. It may not have received any other forms of financing of $250,000 or more.
Plans must:
a) be a for-profit enterprise,
b) demonstrate venture-grade business models, practices, and/or technologies with high growth potential; and,
c) provide innovative solutions, services or products that address an unmet need in global sustainability.