Venture Creation: The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
Release Date: Apr 28, 2009
Five student ventures take top honors at Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation’s 2009 Regnier Family Foundations Venture Creation Challenge
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UMKC’s Bloch School announced the winners of the 2009 Regnier Family Foundations Venture Creation Challenge. The Challenge took place over the spring semester, with finalists announced the evening of Monday, April 27 at the Kauffman Foundation, where the Challenge weekend took place.
The Venture Creation Challenge exists to encourage student venture creation through a forum in which students can present new venture concepts to local investors, entrepreneurs and venture professionals, getting their ideas from whiteboard to boardroom.
“The Venture Creation Challenge is a University-wide challenge using a model that leverages the assets and objectives of the University, giving students the actual tools they need for success and empowering them to create and launch ventures,” explains Michael Song, executive director for the Institute. “The result we hope to get from this program is that the challenge leads to the launching of four to eight new businesses per year, contributing to the Institute’s ultimate goal of annually creating 100 exceptionally well-trained entrepreneurs and 10 high-growth ventures.”
Throughout the semester, UMKC students from a variety of disciplines have been developing business plans supporting commercialization of high-growth potential technologies as well as their own original ventures.
Investors, entrepreneurs, and business professionals from across the Kansas City area volunteered, viewing 24 original UMKC student venture creations at Saturday’s Venture EXPO – ultimately helping select eight finalist presentation teams. From those, five winning teams were presented with launch packages, each valued at $15,000, to start their venture.
Launch packages include placement in the Institute’s Student Ventures Program incubator track,along with accounting, legal, capital access and other practical resources to help the business get started properly.
The winning teams and venture concepts were:
Banana Basket: A patent-pending appliance that dramatically extends the life of all types of fresh fruit. Banana Basket is the first and only appliance to provide proper venting of ethylene gas that the fruit produces, while also maintaining the ideal temperature for freshness.
Go Say Hi!: A mobile, proximity dating service focused on active singles. Utilizing advanced global positioning software, members within close proximity are alerted to potential meeting opportunities through their mobile phones. With proximity dating just emerging in the billion dollar U.S. online dating and matchmaking industry, Go Say Hi! offers a unique service extension by providing users anytime/anywhere opportunities.
ChefBurger: The ChefBurger concept is to franchise the fast-casual dining establishment located in Kansas City’s Power and Light District, providing high-quality, chef-designed burgers at a reasonable price. In addition to gourmet burgers, the franchises will also offer “spiked” milkshakes and a variety of beer.
Lovesick Clothing: An apparel company that focuses on casual wear tops for men and women, which carry a subtle Christian-themed message inspired by conceptual ideas and verses contained within the Bible, yet general enough to appeal to all audiences.
Fun Flotations, LLC: The INFLOTABLE™ is a new motorized social watercraft that allows multiple people to sit in one light, round flotation device while on a lake or in the water.
Finalist team venture concepts included:
BioRich Products, LLC: BioRich provides highly effective soil additives and fertilizers which help farmers increase crop yield while reducing application frequency, thus reducing overall expenditures. BioRich’s products are made from reconstituted organic materials.
LiveFit: LiveFit has created interactive fitness equipment that provides participants the true experience of adventure with the sights, sounds, and even smells of destinations such as Central Park, The Appalachian Trail or Tour de France.
The Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is part of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Bloch School of Business and Public Administration. The Institute’s mission is to inspire and nurture future generations of entrepreneurs and to deliver transformational entrepreneurship education and experiences university-wide. The Institute’s vision is to be a world’s leading research and education institute for entrepreneurship and innovation. The Institute offers entrepreneurship education from undergraduate through the PhD level.
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