Top 20 Schools Handing Out $1.6 Million A Year In Business Plan Contests

Moot Corp., renamed in 2010 the Venture Labs Investment Competition, was the first competition of its kind for MBA students. The contest went national in 1989 and then international in 1990 when just three business schools in England, France and Australia were invited to participate.

Next month, some 40 teams of MBAs from around the globe will gather at The University of Texas at Austin each May to present their business plans to panels of investors and compete for $135,000 in seed funding. This year’s “Global Champion” will receive $25,000 in cash along $25,000 worth of consulting services and mentoring, office space, and access to discounted legal, accounting, and businesses services from top tier providers. The winner even gets a full-page ad in Inc. magazine, another $25,000 worth of consulting from the school’s entrepreneurship faculty and an invite to close the NASDAQ stock market in July.

Surprisingly, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business does not sponsor a business plan competition. Instead, its contest is run by the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students. With support from Silicon Valley’s lawyers and venture capitalists,, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, the group has been able to raise a $150,000 kitty for its annual competition.

THIS YEAR 168 TEAMS FACED OFF IN HARVARD’S THREE NEW VENTURE CONTESTS

This year’s new venture competition at Harvard Business School drew 80 teams this year, up from 63 in 2011. Another 49 teams competed in Harvard’s social enterprise track. The largest single competition–at least by number of competing teams–was the school’s alumni contest this year. Some 139 plans came in from HBS’ 14 alumni clubs in 11 regions around the world. The program booklet Harvard issued on the competing teams was more than 60 pages long.

“The consumer internet stuff is the single most popular bucket,” says Harvard’s Roberts. “Probably 60% of the plans were from that ilk this year. There is a good mix of conventional retail and some higher tech, including eight medical or health care plans and four of five enterprise software plans.”

The 80 teams that entered Harvard Business School’s new venture contest had to submit their applications by mid-December and turn in their business plans by March 29. Just two days later, on March 31, each team had a half hour to make their pitches before more than 100 judges. The 80 teams were immediately winnowed down to 12 semi-finalists until four survivors walked into Harvard’s Burden Auditorium yesterday afternoon for the finals. Three of the four had already won venture backing for their ideas from outside Harvard. Vaxess was the only one that hadn’t.

Besides Vaxess, which won in Harvard’s business venture track, this year’s three runners-up were:

• RallyPoint, founded by first-year student Aaron Kletzing and Yinon Weiss (MBA 2011), revolutionizes the way military professionals connect, develop, and pursue fulfilling opportunities throughout their military careers.
• SaferTaxi, founded by second-year student Jonathan Lo, provides a smartphone application that allows consumers in Latin America to book taxis with added convenience and transparency, aiming to bring greater efficiency and safety to the existing taxi booking process.
• Zumper, founded by second-year student Anthemos Georgiades, allows tenants to search for and close annual apartment leases in a much more transparent manner. Georgiades already has raised $450,000 from three venture capital firms.

The winning team on the social venture side this year was eTransitions, a company founded by MD/MBA joint degree candidate Lissy Hu, Harvard Medical School student Jessica Hohman, incoming MBA student Kira Yugay, and Jonathan Helm. eTransitions is a web-based solution that streamlines the transition of patients from the hospital to post-acute care facilities.

DON’T MISS: THE BEST B-SCHOOLS FOR STARTUPS? or HARVARD VS. STANFORD: WHICH BUILDS THE BETTER ENTREPRENEUR?