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BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY Greater Susquehanna Keystone Innovation Zone Venture Plan Competition April 15 th , 2010 Sam Krassenstein Director, GSKIZ-VPC 2010 Updated: November 17, 2009

Updated Rules and Regulations

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Page 1: Updated Rules and Regulations

BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY

Greater Susquehanna Keystone Innovation Zone Venture Plan Competition

April 15th, 2010

Sam KrassensteinDirector, GSKIZ-VPC 2010

Updated: November 17, 2009

Page 2: Updated Rules and Regulations

2010 Bucknell University Venture plan Competition

Official Rules, Requirements, and Judging Criteria April 15th, 2010

If you have questions or need additional information about the Bucknell Venture plan Competition, please contact Sam Krassenstein at [email protected] or 412-979-1721.

Deadline for submitting Written Venture plan; Friday, February 19th, 2010

Competition at Bloomsburg University; April 15th, 2010.

General Information: Up to 36 teams will be selected to compete in the 2010 VPC at Bloomsburg University. Teams will compete for a grand prize of $5,000 and several other prizes. Teams will have the opportunity to meet and network with many venture capital principals, early stage investors, and successful entrepreneurs who will serve as judges for the competition.

Prizes:

The winners of these prizes will be determined based on their written venture plan and their oral presentations. There are no requirements for how the money is split up among the team participants or how the money needs to be used. Although VPC does encourage the winners to think about using the money to make their venture plans come to fruition.

1st Prize: $5,0002nd Prize: $2,5003rd Prize: $1,000

Entry Deadline: By submitting a written venture plan, your school is committing to competing in the VPC. To enter, one individual from each team should complete the online enrollment form found on the VPC Website. It is NOT necessary to provide the name of the team and the team’s members when registering. However, all team information must be submitted when you submit your business plan or else your team will be ineligible from competing in this year’s competition.

Withdrawal Penalty:

Spaces are limited at the VPC, and a last minute cancellation will prevent another university from competing.

If a team accepts our invitation to attend VPC and drops out for a reason to be deemed unexcused by our coordinator, their school will be ineligible to compete in future VPCs for two years. In addition, a letter will be sent to their faculty advisor and to the Dean of Students informing them of their university representative’s failure to honor their commitment.

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Page 3: Updated Rules and Regulations

Schedule of EventsNote: event times are subject to change and contestants should reconfirm the schedule prior to the event.

Kickoff EventVenture Plan CompetitionSusquehanna UniversityOctober 27th, 2009; 6:00pm

Plans due in PDF format:[email protected] February 19th, 2010; 11:59pm

Press Event, announcement of selected teamsBucknell UniversityFebruary 26th, 2010; 6:30pm-10:00pm

CompetitionBloomsburg UniversityApril 15th, 2010; 8:30am- 5:00pm

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Page 4: Updated Rules and Regulations

QualificationsCompetitor qualifications: The competition is open to all full and part-time undergraduate students, not just business majors. Students must be enrolled in an accredited university during the academic year 2009-2010. Undergraduate students must be in the management part of the venture. Non-students may be members of the management team and participate in planning the venture; however, only under-graduate students may present the plan in the competition on campus and answer questions from the judges.

Student Enrollment: The competition is for students enrolled in the current academic year, i.e., from Fall 2009-through Spring 2010. Students who graduated in preceding academic years are not eligible to participate. An exception will be made for students from non-US universities that have a different academic calendar.

Team Size: The presenting team should include at least one undergraduate student but is not to exceed five students. (At least two students must travel to Bloomsburg to compete). Non-student team members are welcome to travel with the student team, but cannot participate in the presentations. More than five students can travel with the team, but only five students can serve as presenters. Schools are permitted to send an unlimited number of teams to the 2010 Venture plan Competition.

Team Composition: This is a competition for undergraduate students.

Outside Funding: All ventures must be “for profit” entities seeking outside equity capital.

Student Involvement: The competition is for student created, managed, and owned ventures. In other words, students must:

1) Have played a major role in conceiving the venture, 2) Must have been primary writers of venture plan3) Will be the one’s presenting to judges

In general, a member of the student team should be CEO, COO, or President of the venture, or members of the student team should occupy 50% or more of the functional area management positions that report directly to the CEO, COO, or President.

University Sponsored: The venture plan must be prepared under faculty supervision. The venture plan must represent the original work of members of the team. All teams are strongly encouraged to send their faculty or other university advisors to accompany their team to Bucknell University, but this is not required.

Each team MUST have the endorsement of a faculty advisor at their school and must provide contact information for their faculty advisor, regardless of whether or not the advisor will travel with the team to Bucknell University. All faculty advisors will be contacted for verification.

Nature of Ventures: The competition is for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages. Generally excluded are the following: buy-outs, expansions of existing companies, real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area, and spin-outs from existing corporations. Licensing technologies from universities or research labs is not excluded and is encouraged, assuming they have not been commercialized previously.

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Page 5: Updated Rules and Regulations

Prior Activity:

Ventures may compete in the VPC multiple times provided they have NOT been awarded a cash prize in prior years. Teams may compete annually.

Ventures with revenues in prior academic years, i.e., before January 1st, 2010, are excluded. This rule does exclude revenues that were gained as a result of other competitions to be left to the discretion of the Venture Plan Competition Director. However, both student and other team members may have worked on an idea or new technology in previous academic years or in the case of the student team members even prior to entering undergraduate school, provided that their venture had no revenues and raised no outside equity capital.

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Page 6: Updated Rules and Regulations

Venture plan RequirementsWritten Venture plan Submission: A complete written venture plan from the invited and confirmed teams will be due to the Bucknell University Venture plan Competition via email at [email protected] on or before 11:59 pm EST on Friday, February 19th, 2010. Please submit an electronic version via email in Adobe Acrobat PDF. No other format will be accepted.

General Guidelines: Written venture plans are suggested to be limited to 25 pages of text (typed, single-spaced, minimum 12 font, and 1” margins on all sides), including the executive summary and summary financial data. Detailed spreadsheets and appropriate appendices should follow the text portion of the plan but will be limited to 10 pages. In total, the maximum number of pages should be around 35.

Contents of the Written Venture plan (TBD): your venture plan should include (est. 15-20 pages)

• Executive Summary• Product or service description (incl. current status of development – beta, prototype, etc.) • Customer/Market analysis (market size and potential market share)• Sales and Marketing Plan (how you will go-to-market)• Intellectual property status (e.g., patents, licenses, etc.)• Competitor Analysis (competitors and your competitive differentiation) • Management team and/or advisors, including relevant experience • Financial highlights (cash flow, income statement, & balance sheet) • Offering of the company (how much investment you are seeking, uses of funding, possible exits) • Venture plan Financial Data:

o Financial data should include a cash flow statement, income statement, and balance sheet. This data should be included in a summarized fashion in the main section of the venture plan. Include an explanation of the offering to investors indicating how much money is required, how it will be used, and the proposed structure of the deal, (i.e., stock, debentures, etc.) and possible exit strategies. Detailed financial data and tables should be included in the appendix.

Please note: The team is not required to reveal the exact desired terms of the deal (i.e., proposed company valuation and percentage of company being offered). However, teams should expect to be asked about these terms and should be prepared to answer these questions in some fashion (if this information is not already provided in the written plan.) It is up to the team to assess the BEST way to address this question; however, past experience indicates that some judges will want to know a team’s estimated company valuation.

Appendices: should be included only when they support the findings, statements, and observations in the plan. Because of the number of teams in the competition, judges may not be able to read all the material in the appendices. Therefore, the text portion of the plan (20 pages) must contain all pertinent information in a clear and concise manner.

Changes to Your Venture plan: You may not make changes to your plan once it has been submitted. However, if you feel the need to modify your plan, when you make your oral presentations on campus, you can make incorporate these changes into your presentation.

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Page 7: Updated Rules and Regulations

The oral presentations will take place on the Bloomsburg University campus in Bloomsburg, PA on Thursday, April 15th, 2010. Teams should arrive on campus during evening between 8:00am-9:00am.

Competitions:

Semi-Final Round, Thursday, April 15th: In the Semi-Final Round, each team will have 25 minutes to present its venture plan. The presentation will be followed by a maximum 20 minute question-and-answer session with the judges. There will be 15 minutes in between presentations so competitors can get set up and so judges have time to write comments. Competitors should assume judges are somewhat familiar with plans. THESE TIME LIMITS WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED.

Final Round, Thursday, April 15th: The final round will be structured differently from the semi final round. The final round will mainly be a question and answer round, while teams will be able to present any changes based on feedback they received. For the Final Round, each team should be in position at least 15 minutes prior to their designated presentation times. On Sunday, teams will start early if the team before them finishes ahead of schedule.

Note: The final round may not be observed However, in the semi-final round teams are permitted and encouraged to observe competing teams’ presentations. The venture plan competition is primarily a learning experience for all involved.

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Page 8: Updated Rules and Regulations

MiscellaneousThe decisions regarding the winners of the Venture plan Competition is at the discretion of the judges and the organizers of the competition, and all decisions are final.

Other Forms: 1 Each team member will be required to submit an individual Form W-9 or W-8 ECI at registration. If the venture has been incorporated and has received an EIN, one form may be filled out. No prizes will be awarded without a completed W-8 ECI or W-9 on file with VPC.

Equipment: Teams should plan to bring a laptop and a copy of their presentation on CD or USB Drive. Each presentation room is equipped with a large-screen projector and a room PC to run your presentation. You may also connect your laptop directly to the projector to present.

Please let us know if you have any questions or have any special equipment needs. If you have questions about audio/video equipment, please contact the Competition Director as soon as possible at 412-979-1721 or [email protected]. Please note that if your presentation contains video, graphics, and/or sound, you should let us know in advance, and we will try to help ensure that your presentation works properly at the Competition. However, we cannot guarantee that video, graphics, and sound will work 100% of the time.

Confidentiality: The only individuals who will have access to your business plans (in addition to the co-chairs of the Contest) will be the judges who are assigned to read your plan. These judges are largely professional venture capital investors, (and in the case of social enterprise, venture philanthropists) who regularly deal with confidential information in the course of their work. We have asked them to treat your work product with the same care and respect for confidentiality. We also ask them to remove themselves from judging your plan if they do have a real conflict of interest. Feel free to mark your plan—or particular piece of it—as "confidential."Note that the short description of your idea which you include with your entry form may be used in public documentation relating to the Contest.Each year, as presentation to the judge’s approach, some students become concerned about potential issues of confidentiality. The judges are all venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who deal with confidential information in the normal course of their businesses. You should feel free to mark your plan confidential, to exclude any information you regard as truly proprietary, and to request that the judges give you the hard copy of your plan back after you've completed your presentation

Copyrights & Permissions: If a team uses copyrighted materials and/or images from a third-party in their presentation or venture plan, then they must obtain permission and authorization from the owners to use this material in advance.

Authorship: The author of the venture plan will retain all rights to the plan regarding its use at all times prior to and following the competition except as stated.

Use of Conference Materials: The VPC reserves the right to use material prepared for the VPC in publicizing and promoting the event. Competitor teams retain all proprietary rights. VPC may use the materials in any printed materials and any videotape or other medium that it may produce.

1 Forms will be made available online.

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Page 9: Updated Rules and Regulations

Changes to Competition Rules: While not anticipated, these rules and prizes are subject to change at the discretion of the organizing committee. Best efforts will be made to communicate any changes to all participants. The decisions regarding the winners of the Venture plan Competition is at the discretion of the judges and the organizers of the competition, and all decisions are final.

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