Fortune Small Business to sponsor Rice Business Plan Competition

Fortune Small Business to sponsor Rice Business Plan Competition

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff

The competition has joined the competition.

Fortune Small Business magazine this week agreed to become a national media sponsor for the 2008 Rice University Business Plan Competition.

“Fortune will be discontinuing their own intercollegiate business plan competition and joining forces with us,” said Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.

Hosted by the Rice Alliance and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, the Rice Business Plan Competition is a three-day event that simulates the real-world process of entrepreneurs soliciting start-up funds from early stage investors and venture capital firms.  Thirty-six teams from top graduate-level programs around the nation are selected to compete for $600,000 in prizes.

“Our event has grown to become the largest and richest intercollegiate MBA/graduate-level business plan competition in the world, with more prize money, more teams competing and more judges than any other competition,” Burke said.

As a national media sponsor, Fortune Small Business will publish an article about the competition. The magazine — a joint venture by the Fortune Group at Time Inc. and American Express Small Business Services — is delivered to one million small-business owners, and because it appears online also, the article will attract even more national and international attention to the Rice competition. 

“We have about 70 mostly corporate sponsors so far this year, and we had been hoping to attract a national publication,” Burke said. “So I’m very pleased we were able to land Fortune.”

The 2008 Rice Business Plan Competition will take place April 3-5 at Janice and Robert McNair Hall.  The 36 teams were selected from 234 applicants — three times the number received last year.  They will present their business plans to a judging panel of more than 160 venture capitalists, investors and business executives. The grand-prize winner will get an investment opportunity of $325,000.  An awards banquet attended by more than 500 business leaders and executives ends the event in style.