Five University of Washington students won the western division of the National Venture Capital Investment Competition held last weekend in Boulder, Colo.
The UW
Business School's Center for Technology Entrepreneurship
(CTE) sponsored the team of four master's of business
administrations students: Andy Baldridge, Shaun Westfall,
Uday Keshavdas and Balu Chenicheri; and Joy Ghosh, a
fourth-year UW Medical School and CTE student.
The
$5,000 first prize will be used to finance the team's trip to
the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in April to
participate in the national finals. The UW also won the
"entrepreneur's choice" award (and an extra $1,000) which was
given to the team the judges said they would most like to
work with. It was the first time in the seven-year history
of the competition that a team has won both first prize and
the entrepreneur's choice award.
"The quality and quantity of volunteers and coaches from local venture capital firms was truly amazing and invaluable," said Suresh Kotha, faculty director of CTE. "In working with local experts and entrepreneurs, students learned the finer points of successfully identifying and mitigating the risks in making investments as well as cultivating their knowledge about the venture capital industry. Their success is a true testament to the involvement of the Seattle entrepreneurial community in CTE."
The competition required student teams to assume
the role of venture capital firms. Each school was given a
hypothetical $60-million fund to invest in and had 48 hours
to evaluate five bona fide business plans and then decide
where to invest their money. They then had to defend their
decisions to a judging panel of venture capitalists.
Emer Dooley, faculty adviser to the UW team and lecturer
in the school's management and organization department, said
the students' participation in an extensive weekly coaching
program led by Seattle-area venture capitalists and
entrepreneurs clearly helped secure the win.
"Students used quantitative skills to evaluate the
business plans from financial, operational, marketing,
behavioral and strategic angles," she said. "Qualitative
skills were also tested during presentations and the question
and answer sessions – from building a rapport with
entrepreneurs to confidently presenting and defending
strategies to venture capital professionals. Tremendous
teamwork was required to handle the workload."
The UW team competed against University of Southern California; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Berkeley; San Diego State University; University of Michigan; and University of Texas, Austin.
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For
more information, contact Dooley at (206) 369-7248 or
emer@u.washington.edu or Kotha at (206) 543-4466;
skotha@u.washington.edu.
