Rice announces new $100,000 KPCB Prize for CleanTech Innovation with call for entries for annual business plan competition
Total prizes at the 2011 Rice Business Plan Competition to exceed $1 million

BY MARY LYNN FERNAU
Special to Rice News

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship kicked off its call for entries for the 2011 Rice University Business Plan Competition this week by announcing the new $100,000 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Prize for CleanTech Innovation. The KPCB prize is intended to encourage business and technology solutions for cleaner power, transportation and water.

Teams from 42 of the world’s top graduate schools will participate in the April 14-16 business plan competition, which has a total prize pool worth more than $1 million. Teams may apply to compete until Feb. 18 at www.alliance.rice.edu/rbpc.

“As hosts of the world’s largest and richest business plan competition, we are pleased to be working with KPCB, the pre-eminent venture capital firm, to support the commercialization of green technologies,” said Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance, which organizes the Rice Business Plan Competition. “The faster we can advance technologies to provide clean, sustainable energy, the faster we can eliminate the world’s dependence on current energy sources that are limited in supply, becoming more costly to produce and creating harmful environmental emissions.”

“Innovations in clean energy — demand, supply, storage, efficiency — are more compelling and valuable than ever before,” said KPCB partner John Doerr, a Rice alum. “We’re excited by the prospect of disruptive new technologies to change the game and meet enormous global energy needs.”

In addition to KPCB, more than 100 corporate and private sponsors are onboard this year to support the business plan competition. Venture capitalists and other investors from around the world will volunteer their time to judge the competition; most of the more than 250 judges will come from the investment sector. During the three days of competition, teams will square off in three different categories of investor pitches, including an elevator pitch, business plan presentation and TwitPitch. The grand prize is valued at more than $400,000.

The event will take place in Houston. Doerr will be in attendance April 15 for the finalists’ reception at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business. Winners of the competition will be announced April 16 in front of more than an expected 650 attendees at the InterContinental Houston Hotel.

The 2010 competition included teams from top graduate schools such as Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Dartmouth, Babson, Northwestern, University of Texas and Rice, as well as international teams from India, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Canada. Through mentoring and networking, more than 100 past competitors from the Rice Business Plan Competition have gone on to successfully launch their companies; they have raised more than $223 million to build their businesses.

The Rice University Business Plan Competition is the world’s largest and richest graduate-level business plan competition. It is hosted and organized by the Rice Alliance, Rice University’s flagship initiative devoted to the support of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship education and the launch of technology companies. It was formed as a strategic alliance of three schools: the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the Jones Graduate School of Business in collaboration with the Vice Provost and the Office of Research.

This is the 11th year for the competition, which has grown from nine teams competing for $10,000 in prize money in 2001 to 42 teams from around the world competing for more than $1 million in cash and prizes in 2011.

In 2010, intents to compete increased to nearly 420 teams from around the world from 340 the previous year. More than 120 corporate and private sponsors support the business plan competition. More than 250 venture capitalists and other investors from around the country volunteer their time to judge the competition; more than half of the judges come from the investment sector.

Since its inception, the Rice Alliance has assisted in the launch of more than 250 startups that have raised more than a half-billion dollars in early stage capital. More than 750 companies have presented at more than 125 programs hosted by the Rice Alliance, www.alliance.rice.edu.

–Mary Lynn Fernau is director of marketing for the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.