The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University and the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship are in preparation to host the world’s largest and richest graduate level student startup competition to be held in April of 2018. Forty-two teams will compete from all over the world to win over $1.5 million in cash and prizes at the Rice Business Plan Competition, with all applications including executive summary and video to be submitted by 5:00 pm CST, Friday, February 9, 2018. There is no cost to apply or to compete.
The competition is designed to give collegiate entrepreneurs real-world experience in pitching their startups to investors, while benefiting from mentoring, networking in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and learning how to enhance their startup strategy. Most important they learn what it takes to launch a successful startup.
Rice University is guaranteed one team out of the 42, leaving the other 41 spots for outside entrants. Any team that has a Rice University student must go through a qualifier competition.
On March 1st the 42 chosen teams that have passed the judges’ scoring of their applications will be announced. During the April finals being hosted from April 5-7 on Rice’s Houston campus, judges will evaluate the teams based on how they themselves would actually invest in a startup. This approach gives the participants a glimpse of what the funding process involves.
The top prizes are as follows:
$300,000 – GOOSE Society Investment Prize that goes to the Grand Prize winner in the form of equity investment from The GOOSE Society of TexasTM which is a group of nearly 20 successful company founders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists who believe in giving back by sharing in the fruits of their successes.
$200,000 – OWL Investment Prize was established to increase the total Grand Prize of the competition and create a new community of involved judges. It is comprised of pproximately 40 angel investor RBPC judges are participating in 2017.
$100,000 – The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Houston Angel Investment Prize comes from Silicon Valley via a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and senior professionals with roots in the Indus region. There are currently 13,000 members in 61 chapters across 18 countries.
