2009 Headlines
Johnson School at Cornell University Seeks New Business Ideas in
BR Ventures' Cornell Venture Challenge
Reformatted competition offers finalists coaching from expert judges
February 5, 2009 | Ithaca, NY | The Johnson School at Cornell University is now accepting entries for the BR Ventures' Cornell Venture Challenge until March 1, 2009. The Cornell Venture Challenge replaces the Business Idea Competition that BR Ventures, the Johnson School's student-run venture capital fund, has sponsored for the past eight years. This year's competition has been renamed and reframed to provide finalists with feedback sessions to further refine their idea and pitch.
The winning idea will receive $10,000 and 20 hours of free legal help through BR Legal, Cornell's entrepreneurship legal services program. Second place will be awarded $2,500 with third place receiving $1,000. Winners will automatically receive a Cornell Technology Transfer Prize that matches this prize money if their business idea is based on Cornell intellectual property officially on record with Cornell's Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CCTEC).
The Cornell Venture Challenge provides a way for Cornell students, faculty, and alumni; and students and faculty at other universities to take their first step toward turning an idea into a viable business. Entrants are required to submit a two or three page description of their business. BR Ventures student managers will review each entry and select no more than five to advance as finalists of the competition. Finalists will be notified by March 15, 2009 and will be required to flesh their ideas out into a short business plan that will be presented to a panel of expert venture capitalists, successful entrepreneurs, business and law professionals, and a public audience on April 16, 2009 as part of the University-wide Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration.
The winners will be selected based on the viability of the business and information conveyed during the final presentation. Following the presentations, each finalist will receive a feedback session with the panel of judges to further refine their business idea and pitch. The winning ideas will be announced later that day at the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration Dinner.
For the last eight years BR Ventures has sponsored a business idea competition which has attracted more than 150 entries annually from across the country. The competition was designed to foster entrepreneurship by combining the talents of entrepreneurs with the capital and resources of BR Ventures and BR Incubator, a student-run small business consulting firm.
"BR Ventures uses this competition each year to provide a unique perspective on businesses that might be future investment opportunities," commented Matt Dacey, COO of BR Ventures. "The competition format change this year will help BR Ventures gain additional information on the business ideas and will also provide the finalists with valuable feedback on their pitch and idea from seasoned professionals who serve as judges."
Last year's winner was FreeGreen, which was founded by five Cornell alumni. FreeGreen's mission is to encourage progressive building practices by providing free "green" home plans for everyone. They accomplish this mission by giving away expertly designed, online "green" house plans, while working with green product vendors on an advertising basis to specify their products into the plans.
The Cornell Venture Challenge is sponsored by the Cornell Business and Technology Park which provides some of the funding for prize money, CCTEC for providing the Cornell Technology Transfer Prize to winners utilizing disclosed intellectual property developed at Cornell, and Palo Alto Software for providing business plan software to all competition entrants.
Additional information, including official rules, guidelines, and the entry form can be found on the BR Ventures' Cornell Venture Challenge page.
