CU Team Wins Venture Capital Competition
A student team from the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business recently won the 15thInternational Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) at the University of North Carolina, beating teams from second-place Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (Spain), and third-place Georgetown. Other finalists included teams from Berkeley, Cornell, Michigan, National University of Singapore, Oxford, Wake Forest and Wharton.
The VCIC is a unique event in which students act as investors, reviewing plans submitted by actual entrepreneurial companies seeking funding. The teams are judged by professional venture capitalists. MBA students Lindsey Jensen, Dane McDonald, Jeff Schreier, and Nick Wyman, along with law student Mark Wiranowski, advanced to the finals by winning the West Regional in a competition that included 50 regional events on four continents with more than 1,000 students competing.
“The feedback we received from the VCIC team was that one of the things that contributed most to our win was that one of the MBA team members is active in the CU Biotech Club and is very knowledgeable in that sector,” said Paul Jerde, Executive Director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School. “The VCIC finals are hosted at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where biotech is a big industry. There are always members of the biotech community involved in the event. We cracked the code on that this year.”
Jeff Schreier led the CU Biotech Club this academic year with support from the BioFrontiers Institute. The club is a student group of business, engineering and life sciences graduate students interested in pursuing business opportunities in the biotechnology industry. Through interdisciplinary scholarship and collaboration, the group provides a platform for a practical education and opens a direct channel for dialogue, mentorship and internship with the local Colorado life sciences companies.
Click here to read the news release about the VCIC and the Leeds School team.