Smith Team Heads to International Round of Venture Capital Investment Competition

A team of third-year part-time MBA students won second place and received a check for $2000 in the Southeast Regional Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC). Moshe Cohen, Nat Forgotson, Shad Imam, Skye Manders, and Tom Whelan represented the Smith School of Business at the competition held at Georgia Tech in Atlanta the weekend of March 9, 2007. Their second-place win guarantees the team a spot at the International Finals, which will be held at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in April. This marks the first time a team from Smith has advanced to the finals since 2001.

We are really honored to represent the Smith School in the competition. Our team has great rapport and we have complementary but diverse sets of skills that have helped us get this far. We are looking forward to the next round, said team member Moshe Cohen.

The Smith team beat out teams from the business schools at Carnegie Mellon (Tepper), Duke University (Fuqua), Emory University (Goizueta), Indiana University (Kelley), and the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton). The team from the University of Virginia (Darden) took first place and the team from the University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) was awarded Entrepreneurs Choice.

As part of the competition, the Smith team reviewed five companies seeking venture financing: a Web 2.0 company creating a community for the 50+ demographic, a video gaming hardware manufacturer, a medical device firm, an Internet retailer of kits for electrical hobbyists, and a designer of health monitors for the elderly and infirm. After reviewing the companies business plans, hearing pitches from the entrepreneurs, and participating in a closed-door Q&A session with the entrepreneurs, the team selected one company for investment. The team was judged on a variety of factors ranging from interaction with the entrepreneurs, to company valuation, and presentation of the terms of investment.

We examined all of the business opportunities carefully and in the end went with the one that we felt had the strongest management team and viable idea, said Skye Manders.

The team was coached by New Venture Financing Professor Andrew Sherman, Managing Director of the New Markets Growth Fund, Mark Grovic, and by last years VCIC team, which included second-year full-time students Susannah Campbell, Anne Engebretsen, Avraham Lerner, Mark Slusser, and Karl Olson. In addition, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneurship Club provided financial support to send the students to the Southeast Regionals.

The feedback and support we received has been invaluable. We look forward to working with our coaches and using our experiences in Atlanta to prepare us for the next round, said team member Shad Imam.

The Venture Capital Investment Competition began in the middle of the technology bubble in 1998 as an educational event for MBAs to learn about venture funding. Now in its tenth year, through good times and bad in the venture industry, VCIC has evolved into a marketplace for entrepreneurs seeking investors and a training ground for future venture capitalists. In 2007, VCIC will include 40 events in North America, Europe and Asia, and will serve 500 students, 150 venture capitalists and 100 entrepreneurs.

The Smith team had previously won the local, intra-school competition held February 9, 2007 on campus. The team is accustomed to working together four of five team members had previously competed in the 2006 Smith Part-Time Case Competition, where they took home the Peoples Choice Award.

The Smith team won the Entrepreneur's Choice Award in last year's regional competition, and placed second in the national competition in 2001. For more on the Venture Capital Investment Competition, visit www.vcic.unc.edu.

To get Nat Forgotsons take on the competition and other aspects of his school experience, read his blog at blogs.rhsmith.umd.edu/nat.

Susannah Campbell, MBA Candidate 2007, Smith Media Group