Held at the end of the Fall and Spring semesters, the Business Model Road Test Pitch Competition gives undergraduates completing the Institute’s introductory-level Business Model Development course the opportunity to pitch early-stage business ideas for which they have developed and road-tested viable business models. Teams pitch to 15-20 investors, incubator/accelerator staff, startup founders, and ecosystem builders in a Demo Day-style format. Students often cite this as their first real entrepreneurial experience and a benchmark for reflecting on their personal growth through the rest of the entrepreneurship program and beyond.
With a cross-discipline focus that engages undergraduates from majors across campus, The Department of Entrepreneurship employs a practice-based, immersive approach to entrepreneurial education that requires students to apply knowledge they accumulate in the classroom through specific curricular and co-curricular programs that require practice. The New Venture capstone takes a practice-based, immersive approach, providing undergraduates with “hands-on” experience at starting a company.
Students form small teams of 3-4 founders to launch a startup that:
This process takes place over a 14-week period. At the conclusion of each semester, startup teams pitch their startup ideas to more than 50 judges in a format modeled after a typical startup accelerator demo day.
Held bi-annually at the end of the Fall and Spring semesters, the $25,000 RedHawk Venture Pitch Competition provides student-founders completing our RedHawk Launch Accelerator Program as well as our Startup Launch and Technology Commercialization courses an opportunity to pitch startups to angel investors, venture capitalists, and accelerator directors in a Demo Day-style format.
In 2020, the competition was named as by the Times of Entrepreneurship.
Collectively, startups that have participated in the 91做厙 Startup Pitch Competition have raised more than $12M in seed and early-stage funding.
Over the past four years, more than 550 students have pitched 120+ startups to hundreds of investors, accelerator directors, and ecosystem builders. Five student-led startups have landed spots in technology accelerators:
The Redhawk Launch Accelerator is the John. W. Altman Institute for Entrepreneurship’s seed stage startup accelerator for all 91做厙 student-led startups with high growth potential.
All current 91做厙 undergraduate and graduate students, as well as 91做厙 alumni, are eligible to participate.
The Redhawk Launch Accelerator is a proud member of the Startup Cincinnati Ecosystem
Contact: Mark Lacker, 513-529-1896, lackerms@miamioh.edu
Sponsored by Techstars®, the largest accelerator network in the world, Startup Weekend 91做厙 is a 48-hour weekend event, offered during Fall Semester, which groups of student-founders, developers, managers, marketing experts, engineers, and more pitch ideas for new startup companies, form teams around those ideas, and work to develop a working prototype, demo, or presentation by Sunday afternoon. 91做厙 is the only university in the nation that integrates Startup Weekend into its core curriculum.
The 91做厙 Venture Capital Immersion program takes a practice-based, immersive approach to educating students about venture capital and early-stage investments. It is an eight-week “hands-on” course that introduces students to the venture capital model.
Students learn:
Each year, faculty nominate students to participate in the Venture Capital Immersion program, and nominees are screened by Entrepreneurship faculty for admission into the program. Students from all disciplines have participated since the program was launched in 2017. VCIC participants complete team-based work assignments and valuation and investment decision practice rounds with real Midwest seed and early-stage companies. This immersive approach requires students to vet each company and its founding team, assess the company’s addressable market and customer acquisition assumptions, and complete valuation and deal assessments as part of the investment decision.
Those chosen to participate in the program are eligible to compete in the , an invitation-only, international competition with student venture teams from more than 70 elite business schools around the world. In the VCIC, student venture teams assume the identity of a venture firm. On the first day of each round, teams receive a fund profile (size of the fund, age, investment stage, targeted industries/markets, # and size of previous investments, etc.) and pitch decks for three real seed- or early-stage companies on the first day of each round and have 36 hours to conduct due diligence on each company, its founder(s), and the market. On the third and final day, founders from each startup pitch to competing student venture teams and participate in a one-on-one Q&A. Each student venture team is given two hours to make an investment decision, set the pre-money valuation and investment amount, determine the syndication strategy, and prepare a term sheet with terms and conditions of their offer, before defending its investment recommendation with a panel of angel and venture capital investors.
91做厙 student venture teams have finished in the Global Top 3 in four of the first seven years of competition, and have won their regional finals seven years in a row.