Twenty teams of graduate students from elite universities around the world, including China and Thailand, competed in Portland, Oregon, April 9-11, in the New Venture Championship (NVC), the world-renowned annual business plan competition organized and hosted by the in the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business.
Teams pitched their business plans to more than sixty judges for the chance to win part of the $90,000 in cash prizes awarded at the event. The judges comprised top business leaders and respected entrepreneurs and venture capitalists from throughout the United States.
KT Tape from Brigham Young University (BYU) was recognized as the winner after six intense rounds of competition. The team's winning business plan will bring kinesiology tape--a special tape used by elite athletes to expedite treatment of injuries and certain types of illnesses--to the consumer market through preexisting retailer relationships and a business-to-business distribution model.
Team members Michelle Quinn and Reed Quinn, both MBA students at BYU, were awarded $50,000 toward their business venture and an automatic bid to the 2010 New Venture Championship for BYU.
"We are very grateful," said Michelle Quinn about winning the competition. "The judges were phenomenal. They provided us with feedback in both semifinal and final rounds which was unparalleled to any other business plan competition we've competed in."
The win also landed KT Tape an automatic bid to the 2009 Moot Corp competition in Austin, Texas, May 6-9. However, since KT Tape previously won the Venture Challenge at San Diego State University, they had already qualified. The 2009 Moot Corp bid awarded by NVC will instead be given to the second place team.
Second place finisher, Gyan from Northwestern University, also received $10,000. Third place finisher, Integrated Diagnostics from the University of California, Berkeley, received $5,000, and two runner-up teams, Castor & Pollux of Chulalongkorn University and Gold Plus from Thammasat University, were awarded $2,500 each.
"KT Tape is a great representation of the quality of competition at NVC," said Randy Swangard, director of NVC. "We're thrilled to announce them as our winner and eager to follow the success of this team in the future."
Other cash prizes were awarded to competitors in earlier rounds, including:
Tektronix Trade Show Award: First Place, necoPlastics from University of Louisville, $1,000
Tektronix Elevator Pitch Award: First Place, necoPlastics from University of Louisville, $1,000
Oregon Entrepreneurs Network Lightning Round:?Focal Pop from University of Texas at Austin, $1,500?GeneWeave from Cornell University, $1,500?GroundUp Biosolutions from University of Arkansas, $1,500?Interactive Fan from University of Oregon, $1,500?necoPlastics from University of Louisville, $1,500?All other teams competing were awarded $750 as runners-up.
For more NVC competition details and to review live blog updates from the event, visit http://www.oregonnvc.com/.