Team Composition
- The team must be comprised of 2-5 students. The team may consist of graduate and undergraduate students as long as the majority (51%) are graduate students. Students from any graduate program (not just MBAs) are eligible to participate, including executive and evening format programs. Non-students may be members of the venture’s management team and may participate in planning the venture, however only students may participate in the competition.
- Students enrolled in executive or evening program formats are eligible in the next competition season following their graduation if they did not graduate on a traditional (month of May) graduation schedule. Exceptions will be made for students who both wrote their business plans for academic credit and graduated during the preceding summer and for students from universities south of the equator not having a traditional (month of May) graduation timeframe.
- Any team participating in an undergraduate competition, regardless of team reconfiguration, is disqualified from the NVC competition.
- Students must have played a major role in conceiving the venture by having key management roles and owning significant equity in the venture.
- 50% or more of the equity is allocated to the student management team and key advisors.
- Ventures and their base concepts may compete for only one academic season in graduate level venture competitions. Ventures that have generated revenue or raised equity capital from sources other than the members of the student team before the current academic year are excluded.
- The business plan must be prepared under faculty supervision. Ideally, the business plan will be prepared for credit in a regularly scheduled course or as an independent study. The business plan must represent the original work of members of the team.
Registration Process
Applications must be submitted via our registration portal no later than February 6, 2019.
Please review the NVC competing venture team eligibility rules to be sure your graduate team meets the criteria for competing in NVC and review the specific submission requirements for the qualifying executive summary and pitch deck.
Teams that register and submit a qualifying executive summary and pitch deck can expect the following:
- Qualifying Round (February 21 - March 12, 2019) All registrants who meet the submission criteria and provide a qualifying executive summary and pitch deck by 11:59 p.m. PST, February 6, 2019 will compete in the online qualifying round.
- Semifinalist Round in Portland, Oregon (April 11-13, 2019) Semifinalist teams will be selected from the qualifying round and invited to participate in the NVC semifinal round. All qualifying round teams will be notified by March 19, 2019 regarding placement. Teams advancing to the semifinals will be required to submit additional documents including a full business plan and a one-page written "pitch" utilizing Palo Alto Software's "Live Plan" software.
