MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition

{{Short description|Student-managed business plan competition}}

{{Multiple issues|{{Advert|date=May 2021}}

{{One source|date=May 2021}}}}

The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is a student-managed business plan competition, where undergraduates and postgraduates from various programs and all levels at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) organize and enter the competition. Teams must include at least one full-time MIT student, but membership is not limited to the MIT community. The competition is supported by the MIT Entrepreneurship Center at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Every year a total of $300,000 is distributed as non-dilutive grant money. Since 1990, over 160 companies have been started as a result of the competition, generating 4,600 jobs, receiving over $1.3 billion in follow-up venture capital funding and totaling a cumulative market value of over $15 billion.

Process

Throughout the academic year, the teams take part in a process that includes industry and legal mentorship, multiple live judging rounds, prototyping and pitch workshops, expense accounts for venture development, networking events with sponsors and alumni, and the awarding of roughly {{Usd|300,000}} in non-dilutive prize money.

The competition started in 1990 as the $10K competition and continued to grow throughout the 1990s. In 1996 the $10K evolved into the $50K, with $30K going to the winner and $10K to each of the two runners-up. In 2006, the $50K grant competition also added another aspect to the competition focused on business plans for low-income communities to complement the traditional business venture competition. Subsequently, the competition has rebranded itself with a larger grant amount of $100K and is called the MIT $100K Pitch Contest.

MIT $100K PITCH Contest

The MIT $100K Pitch Contest is organized yearly by the MIT $100K organizing committee. Intended to provide a way for entrepreneurs with ideas to form teams, it is held in the fall. The contest is a warm-up event for the Executive Summary Contest, held in the winter, and the Business Plan Contest, held in the spring. In the Elevator Pitch Contest, each contestant is given 60 seconds in front of a crowd to give their "elevator pitch," with the winner receiving a cash prize. This contest is open to the public.

MIT $100K ACCELERATE Contest

The MIT $100K ACCELERATE Contest replaced the MIT $100K Executive Summary Contest in 2011. It is held in the winter of the academic year and is intended to help teams build a robust prototype for their start-up idea. Teams work on creating a demonstration of their idea over December and January, and the best selected are the ACCELERATE Finale Show. MIT $100K provides resources and mentorship to help teams build their demonstrations, which will be reviewed by a panel of judges, with the winner receiving a cash prize.{{Cite web|url=http://mit100k.org/accelerate/|title=Accelerate}}

MIT $100K LAUNCH - Business Plan Contest

The MIT $100K Launch Contest is the flagship of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. In the spring, semi-finalists are selected from all business plan submissions. LAUNCH is the final contest in the $100K cycle. Participants present full-scale business plans for the chance to win a $100,000 grand prize.

=Winners - Business Plan Contest=

border=1 cellpadding=2 style="border-collapse: collapse;"
bgcolor="#ccccff"

| Year

| Winner

| Track and Description

| Team Members

2025

|CoFlo Medical

|Medical Devices

|Simon Rufer, Vishnu Jayaprakash, Kripa K. Varanasi

2024

|Helix Carbon

|Cleantech, Sustainability, Hardware

|Evan Haas

2023

|Active Surfaces

|Cleantech, Sustainability, Hardware

|Shiv Bhakta, Richard Swartwout

2022

|Nona+ Desalination

|Cleantech, Sustainability, Hardware

|Junghyo Yoon, Bruce Crawford

2021

|Osmoses

|Cleantech, Energy Efficiency

|Francesco Maria Benedetti, Katherine Mizrahi Rodriguez, Holden Lai

2020

|Ocular Technologies

|Hardware, Health & Wellness

|Brett Sternfield, Zona Liu, Grayson Armstrong

2019

|[https://amplified.industries Amplified industries]

|Artificial Intelligence, IoT

|Sebastien Mannai, Charles-Henri Clerget, Louis Creteur

2018

|Infinite Cooling

|n/a

|Maher Damak, Karim Khalil

2017

|Lightmatter

|Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Photonic Computing

|Nick Harris, Darius, Dr. Yichen Shen, Thomas Graham

2016

| Astraeus Technologies

| Medical Devices (Diagnostics)

| Joe Azzarelli, Alex Blair, Jay Kumar, Graham Lieberman

2015

| Raptor Maps

| n/a

| Nikhil Vadhavkar, Forrest Meyen, Edward Obropta

2014

| Disease Diagnostic Group

| n/a

|

2013

| 3dim

| Mobile Track

| Andrea Colaço, Nan-Wei Gong, Vivek K. Goyal, Ahmed Kirmani, Nate Stewart, and Rahul Tejwani

2012

| Filepicker.io

| Mobile Track

| Brett Van Zuiden, Anand Dass, David Chang, Thomas G

2011

|Sanergy

|Emerging Markets Track

|David Auerbach, Lindsay Stradley, Ani Vallabhaneni

2010

| C-Crete

| Products & Services Track

| Rouzbeh Shahsavari, Natanel Barookhian

2009

| Ksplice

| Web/IT Track

| Tim Abbott, Jeff Arnold, Waseem Daher, Anders Kaseorg, Nelson Elhage

2008

| Diagnostics for All

| Life Sciences Track

| Roozbeh Ghaffari, Jon Puz, Hayat Sindi, Gilbert Tang, Carol Waghorne, Krishna Yeshwant

2007

| Robopsy

| Medical Devices (for biopsies)

| John Harthorne, Conor Walsh, Nevan Hanumara

2006

| Semprus BioSciences (formerly SteriCoat)

| Surface Modifications on Medical Devices

| Chris Loose, David Lucchino, Joel Moxley, Mike Hencke and Vipin Gupta

2005

| Balico

| Medical Devices

| Baruch Schori, Harry Lee, Kathleen Sienko, Jimmy Robertsson

2004

| Active Joint Brace
Now:Myomo Inc.

| Medical Devices

| Mira Sahney, Kailas Narendran, John McBean, Joe Jackson, Hocking Chen, Raja Surapanani,

2003

| SmartCells

| Medical Devices

| Todd C. Zion, Robert Bruch, Martin Curiel, John Hebert, Tsafrir Vanounou

1998

| Direct Hit Technologies

| Internet search engine

| Mike Cassidy, Gary Culliss, Steven Yang

1992

|Toolbox

|Machine Tool Controller

|Miles Arnone, Chad Clawson, Dan Berkery

1991

| Stylus Innovation

| Barcode-based remote shopping

| Krisztina 'Z' Holly, Mike Cassidy, John Barrus

Notable companies formed through the competition

Since its founding, the $100K Competition has helped launch more than 60 companies with an aggregate value of more than $10.5 billion. Prominent $100K alumni companies include Akamai, net. Genesis, and C-Bridge.

border="1" cellpadding="2" style="border-collapse: collapse;"
bgcolor="#ccccff"

| Year

| Competition Result

| Company

| Result

| Exit lue

1991

| Grand-Prize Winner

| Stylus Innovation

| Acquired - 1996

| $12.8M

1995

| Finalist

| Harmonix, Inc.

| Acquired - 2006

| $700M

1995

|Finalist

|Silicon Spice

|Acquired by Broadcom

|$1.2 billion

1996

|Finalist

|Webline Communications

|Acquired by Cisco

|$325M

1998

| Grand-Prize Winner

| Direct Hit

| Acquired - 2000{{cite web |url=http://www.irconnect.com/askj/pages/news_releases.html?d=11056 |title=Ask Jeeves Investor Relations |website=www.irconnect.com |access-date=17 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060111015321/http://www.irconnect.com/askj/pages/news_releases.html?d=11056 |archive-date=11 January 2006 |url-status=dead}}

| $517M

1998

| Runner-up

| Akamai

| IPO - 1999

| $26.00 per share

Current market cap: $12.50 Billion

2003

| Finalist

| Brontes Technologies

| Acquired by 3M - 2006

| $95M

2006

|Finalist

|HubSpot

|CurrenMarket cap

|$2.29 Billion

2010

| Finalist

| Pushpins

| Acquired by Ebates - 2012{{Cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/19/performance-marketing-brands-a-k-a-ebates-buys-grocery-shopping-app-pushpins|title = Performance Marketing Brands (a.k.a. Ebates) Buys Grocery Shopping App Pushpins| date=20 January 2013 }}

| $10–17M

2010

|Runner-Up{{cite web |last1=Powell |first1=Ali |title=MIT $100K: A Celebration of 20 Years of Economic Impact |url=https://www.americaninno.com/boston/mit-100k-a-celebration-of-20-years-of-economic-impact/ |website=www.americaninno.com |publisher=Bostinno |access-date=26 August 2024}}

|Flywire (fka PeerTransfer)

|IPO - 2021{{Cite web|first=Anissa|last=Gardizy|date=May 25, 2021|title=Boston payments firm Flywire raises $250 million in IPO|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/25/business/boston-payments-firm-flywire-raises-250-million-ipo/|access-date=2021-06-01|website=BostonGlobe.com|language=en-US}}

|$250M

History: MIT $10K/$50K/$100K Entrepreneurial Competition

The competition was founded in the 1989–1990 academic year and was initially intended as a promotional vehicle for the MIT Entrepreneurs Club (now the MIT E-Club.) Club members Richard Durling-Shyduroff and Douglas Ling along with club Founder Peter Mui envisioned a cross-campus event that brought MIT's varied schools together to identify and support innovative ideas on campus. The goal was to create a safe, nurturing, (relatively controlled) sandbox environment where fledgling entrepreneurs could try their wings. The lead alumni donor was George Hatsopoulos of Thermo Electron. with additional generous support from other alumni, the Sloan School (Dean Lester Thurow) and Engineering School (Acting Dean Jack Kerrebrock.)

= Managing Directors =

border=1 cellpadding=2 style="border-collapse: collapse;"
bgcolor="#ccccff"

| Year

| Name

2023

|Stefan Sayre, Ping King, Santiago Tagle Llamosas

2022

|Ezgi Emiroglu, Jimmy Teng, Graziano Gallitto

2021

|Claire Beskin, Thierno Sylla, Samuel Lambert

2020

|Akhilesh Koppineni, Christian Mirabile, Jennifer Shin

2019

|Harry Kainen, Kat Krieger, Cy Schroeder

2018

|Jake Guglin, Sandy Corrales

2017

|Bar Kafri

2016

|Monique Guimond

2015

|Marc Chalifoux, Jake Auchincloss

2014

|Peri AbouZied, Gino Korolev

2013

|Ally Yost, Haya Al Ghanim

2012

|Alice Francis, Adam Borelli

2011

|Kourosh Kaghazian

2010

|Daniel Vannoni

2009

|Sombit Mishra, Brian Cantwell

2008

|Frederic Kerrest

2007

|Jeff Sabados

2006

|Karina Drees

2005

|Jason Fuller, Lawrence Walmsley

2004

|Ian Blakely, Marcus Lopez

2003

|Dan Riskin, Matt Richards

2002

|Brian Curtis

2001

|Michael Parduhn

2000

|Elad Gil

1999

|Heather Wilding

1998

|Scott Blankstein

1997

|Sally Shepard

1996

|Will Clurman

1995

|James Deverell

1994

|Joost Bonsen

1993

|Joost Bonsen

1992

|Doug Ling

1991

|Doug Ling

1990

|Peter Mui, Doug Ling

1989

|Peter Mui, Doug Ling

Entrepreneurship for Development Competition

The Entrepreneurship for Development Competition is a competition for business plans that are judged on the following criteria: uniqueness of business idea, management strength, path to sustainability and social impact. The competition was added in 2006 as a complement to the Business Venture Competition due to increasing demand and interest in socially conscious ideas. In the spring, semi-finalists are selected from all business plan submissions. Semi-finalists submit more detailed business plans, and 5-6 finalists are then chosen. At the awards ceremony, the top team is awarded the Entrepreneurship for Development grand prize.

=Winners - Entrepreneurship for Development Competition=

In 1998, a dual award within the Venture Competition was awarded to a pair of finalists including Volunteer Community Connection. At the time, VCC was a non-traditional entry into the competition and

has since served as a motivating example for the genesis of the MIT $100K Developmental Entrepreneurship Competition. As a result, they are listed as a winner and implicitly as an innovator within the Entrepreneurship for Development Competition.

border=1 cellpadding=2 style="border-collapse: collapse;"
bgcolor="#ccccff"

| Year

| Winner

| Description

| Team Members

2007

| Bagazo

| Alternate Fuels from Agricultural Waste

| Johan Löfström, Felicita Holsztejn, Jules D. Walter, Gerthy Lahens, Amy Banzaert

2006

| CentroMigrante

| Sustainable Housing for Migrant Communities

| Illac Diaz, Neil Ruiz, Tina Laforteza, Artessa Salvidar-Sali, Bianca Locsin, Chester Yu

1998

| Volunteer Community Connection

| The Volunteer Community Connection enables the easy and automated sign-up and management of volunteers with non-profit agencies.

| Michael Bryzek, Jonathan Allen, Oumi Mehrotra, Emily Sandberg, Mark Y. Sun

See also

References

{{Reflist}}