Smith Team Wins the Entrepreneur’s Choice Award at the
Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) Regionals

Capital Access Ventures, comprised of first-year Smith MBAs Mark Slusser, Anne Engebretsen, Avi Lerner, Susannah Campbell, and Karl Olson, won the Entrepreneur's Choice Award at the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) Regionals on March 2-4, 2006 in Atlanta. Earlier, the team was selected to represent the Smith School after winning an internal competition held on February 24. The internal round was sponsored by the Dingman Center of Entrepreneurship, Office of Career Management and venture capital firm Opus 8.

Elaborating on the experience, first-year MBA student Anne Engebretsen said, “representing the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the VCIC Regional Round at Georgia Tech in Atlanta was a wonderful experience. We competed against seven other teams for two long days (and nights) and ended up winning the Entrepreneur’s Choice Award. The competition proved to be a test of our ability to appropriately and effectively divide up tasks and our ability to perform at a high level on little sleep.”

The team felt that getting constructive feedback from VC judges was their most valuable experience at the competition. She also praised the Dingman Center of Entrepreneurship for the added value it provides to Smith students. “Having worked as a company analyst with the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship’s Capital Access Network definitely worked to the advantage of Capital Access Ventures," said Engebresten. "We are aware of each others’ strengths and weaknesses and could effectively leverage these in a competitive setting like the VCIC. We also knew what to look for in the business plans and what questions to ask the entrepreneurs.”

The southeast regional round was held at Georgia Tech from March 2-4, 2006. Each group was handed a fund profile and two copies of each of the five business plans on Thursday evening. The teams were supposed to eliminate a few of the companies based on this information, and form questions for the 30-minute Q&A sessions with the entrepreneurs the next morning. All teams had until Saturday morning to make their investment decisions and present to the judges. The judges based their decision on the teams’ Executive Summary, Term Sheet, and a six-minute presentation followed by a nine-minute question and answer session.

Internal Round Highlights
In the initial competition at Smith, Team AAA, comprised of Yasuo Mutsuura, Andy Cheung, Akinola Dusunmu, Yue Tian, and Karnjaporn Kittiampanont, won second place, while Team International Ventures, comprised of Omarr Tobias, Arindam Basu, Joshua Kroo, Abinash Tiwari, and Seyed Mohammad Mohaghegh Ahmadabadi, took third place.

Seven teams competed in this one day competition. First-year MBA student Arindam Basu said that the VCIC internal round at Smith was a great learning experience. Students felt that this competition offered them a great opportunity to learn about the Venture Capital industry and apply concepts picked up from the first year core curriculum. Michael Barr: President, Netrino; Rusty Griffith: Principal, Walker Ventures, and Joseph R. Kessler: Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Next-Stage Development Group judged the competition. The judges really enjoyed the experience and mentioned that such events enhance the MBA experience while engaging the alumni community.

For more details about VCIC, which concludes April 6-8, 2006, visit: http://www.vcic.unc.edu/

▓ Dingman Scholar Aviral Singh, MBA Candidate 2006