Inaugural Haas-Berkeley Business Plan Competition Generates Winners in More Ways than One
Media Contact: Ute Frey, 510-642-0342
Fax: 510-643-1412, [email protected]
The first-ever Business Plan Competition at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley has generated winners even before contest finals begin this weekend. Just as a result of participating, one finalist, Hotpaper.com, has already gained the interest of a corporate sponsor and several venture capital firms.
Students, alumni, and faculty from Berkeley's business, engineering, and life sciences departments and UC San Francisco's medical school, collaborated with each other and with members of the community in submitting a total of 75 business plans to the competition.
Finalists will compete for a total of $10,000 in prize money on Sat., May 8, at 11:30 am in the Andersen Auditorium of the Haas School (Gayley Road, between Bancroft and Hearst), UC Berkeley. Press is welcome.
The product of one such collaboration is finalist InVivo, a joint venture between life sciences doctoral students and Haas MBAs. InVivo's product will provide rapid and economical identification of genetic mutations. Another example: Timbre Technology, a joint venture of two MBAs and one engineering Ph.D., whose yield-enhancing software reduces semiconductor development costs and time-to-market.
"The goal of the competition is to identify viable ventures that have the best chance to succeed and become the Inktomi's of tomorrow," said Jerry Engel, director of the Haas School's Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, referring to the successful start-up borne out of Berkeley's engineering and business departments. Engel is advisor to 11 MBA students who have organized the contest.
The eight finalists are: * Hotpaper.com -- custom word processing documents on the web * AllOptic -- reliable, low-cost fiber optic to break the bandwidth bottleneck * Timbre Technology -- software that reduces semiconductor development cost and time-to-market * ZipRealty.com -- on-line real estate brokerage to allow home buyers and sellers to complete the transaction on line * InVivo -- rapid and economical identification of genetic mutations * iLink Corporation -- a service leveraging existing Internet contents and technologies * VouchSafe, Inc. -- back-office electronic commerce technologies for the retail sector * muNetix -- ultra-small power supply products for the 'mobile society'
Judges include representatives from Sevin Rosen Funds, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, IVP, Onset Ventures, 21st Century Venture Partners, Intel Corporation, and Siemens Corporation.
For information, check: http://web.haas.berkeley.edu/groups/bplan.
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