MBAs Venture to International Supremacy

A team of UW MBAs has won the prestigious international Venture Capital Investment Competition for the second time in three years.

In the final round, held April 6-8 at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, the team of UW MBAs Chris Howard, Rebecca Lovell, Andy Boyer, Brad Parker and captain Ian Scrymgeour won in a landslide over counterparts from NYU, Michigan, Harvard, MIT, USC, Duke, Colorado and Cambridge.

The VCIC turns the concept of a business plan competition on its head. In the finals, teams assumed the role of $185 million, early-stage venture capital firms and selected one of five real-world business plans in which to invest. Fourteen judges representing major national VC funds evaluated the teams on their interviews of the entrepreneurs, investment strategy and presentation skills.

"It was all about the team," Howard adds. "We had a lot of fun. None of us felt like we were even working. We all learned an incredible amount about the venture capital industry and how it works. How to analyze companies, how to build rapport with entrepreneurs, how to structure a deal. But in the end, it's not about how many industry experts you have on the team. It's about having the team with the most interest and passion and, most of all, chemistry."

Return to May 2006 MBA Alumni News