Smith's 2008 Venture Capital Investment Competition

Every year the MBA Entrepreneurship Club hosts a local round of the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), whose winner then moves on to a regional competition. This year the local round took place on Feb. 8, 2008 and featured three local startups that are currently in the process of looking for funding—Prepchamps, Inspire and mpowerplayers.

VCIC is a competition unlike any other. It was put together by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and gives students the opportunity to act as venture capitalists. Each team of five receives the business plans of three different companies. The plans were distributed on Wednesday evening by e-mail. On Friday, each company gave a 10-minute pitch about themselves to the students and judges, which was followed by a 10-minute due diligence session for each team with each company. During these sessions the teams got to ask any questions they had of the company after reviewing the business plan and hearing the pitch. At that point it was up to the students to decide in which company they would invest.

The students were judged on three different tasks throughout the competition. First was due diligence, then terms sheets and an executive summary, and finally a quick four-minute presentation and eight-minute question-and-answer session. The presentation informed judges of why they chose the company they did and how they came to their valuation of it.

The five teams that competed this year were very diverse. One of the teams, who named themselves "Green Thumb Ventures," was comprised of part-time MBA students. Other teams had mixtures of first- and second-year full-time MBAs. It was a great opportunity to bring students from the different MBA programs together.

Vontade Capital (right) took home first place after an initial tie and a long debate between the judges. This team consisted of Scott Clark, Reed Atkin, Parag Sheth, Jonathan Mervis, and Ahmadali Arabshahi. Second place went to Green Thumb Ventures. There was also a tie for the "Entrepreneur's Choice" award. Each company got to choose who they thought should win the competition based on the due diligence sessions. The two winning teams were Vontade Capital and Pangaea Partners.

While it was a long, fast-paced day, it was a successful one. Participants, entrepreneurs and the judges all enjoyed the experience and what they were able to take away from it. One student commented that it was, "hands down the best event I have been involved in here at Smith."

Smith's winning team went to Wharton for the regional round on Feb. 13-15. They competed against students from Darden, Simon, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, and Indiana. The winner of that round will head to the finals at UNC in April and compete against teams from around the globe.

Loretta Goodridge, MBA Candidate 2008, Smith Media Group