Wharton wins 3rd Annual Sustainable Venture Capital Investment Competition
Jonathan Maack (WG '09) with significant help from Susan Scerbo, Contributing Writers
Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: News
After two hours of sleep, Vicki Yan (WG'08) woke up with a nagging feeling that there was a problem in her team's evaluation of the company they were going to invest in later that morning. As the other team members came back to life, Yan told them they needed to change a number in their analysis. It turned out to be the right choice.
Yan and the Wharton team impressed the judges and won first place at the third annual Sustainable Venture Capital Investment Competition (SVCIC) at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. They beat teams from NYU, Duke, Columbia, UNC, and Northwestern. The five-member team included Vicki Yan and teammates Xiao Chen (WG'09), Ashish Mehta (WG'09), Alice Zhang (WG'08) and Xiaoming Zuo (WG'08).
The competition is a whirlwind of activity, forcing students to make thoughtful investment decisions in a 24-hour span. Teams play the role of venture capitalists, evaluating business ideas using a triple bottom line of financial profitability, environmental integrity, and social equity to determine whom to support. They interview the entrepreneurs, asking tough questions under the watchful eye of VC judges who assess team dynamics, insight into the financials as well as the rapport with entrepreneurs. Then, the real work begins - developing an investment framework, writing a term sheet, and creating a PowerPoint presentation to share their vision for these companies.
"When we finished our analysis on Saturday morning, Vivienne's alarm rang, and we realized we had been awake for 24 hours. It was 5am," says Mehta. "Even though we were totally sleep deprived, we still had an amazing experience."
In their final presentation, the team members talked about why they were interested in the business plan they had selected, which is the Happy Baby Food, an organic baby food company that has extended itself to making a difference not just in the lives of the children who eat their food, but also in malnourished children in other countries. "We felt that saving the lives of children was most important to us," says Mehta.
They established milestones for the company including revenue and operational targets. The team demonstrated to the judges that they were committed to young businesses and were acting as responsible partners in the deal. "The information sessions from the Wharton qualifying round really worked," says Yan. "They provided very good training for us on the common practices in venture capital. Other schools didn't have that level of preparation."
With this victory and the success of another Wharton team in the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), which will be held in Chapel Hill in April, Wharton is putting itself on the map as a center of innovative investing.
Yan and the Wharton team impressed the judges and won first place at the third annual Sustainable Venture Capital Investment Competition (SVCIC) at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. They beat teams from NYU, Duke, Columbia, UNC, and Northwestern. The five-member team included Vicki Yan and teammates Xiao Chen (WG'09), Ashish Mehta (WG'09), Alice Zhang (WG'08) and Xiaoming Zuo (WG'08).
The competition is a whirlwind of activity, forcing students to make thoughtful investment decisions in a 24-hour span. Teams play the role of venture capitalists, evaluating business ideas using a triple bottom line of financial profitability, environmental integrity, and social equity to determine whom to support. They interview the entrepreneurs, asking tough questions under the watchful eye of VC judges who assess team dynamics, insight into the financials as well as the rapport with entrepreneurs. Then, the real work begins - developing an investment framework, writing a term sheet, and creating a PowerPoint presentation to share their vision for these companies.
"When we finished our analysis on Saturday morning, Vivienne's alarm rang, and we realized we had been awake for 24 hours. It was 5am," says Mehta. "Even though we were totally sleep deprived, we still had an amazing experience."
In their final presentation, the team members talked about why they were interested in the business plan they had selected, which is the Happy Baby Food, an organic baby food company that has extended itself to making a difference not just in the lives of the children who eat their food, but also in malnourished children in other countries. "We felt that saving the lives of children was most important to us," says Mehta.
They established milestones for the company including revenue and operational targets. The team demonstrated to the judges that they were committed to young businesses and were acting as responsible partners in the deal. "The information sessions from the Wharton qualifying round really worked," says Yan. "They provided very good training for us on the common practices in venture capital. Other schools didn't have that level of preparation."
With this victory and the success of another Wharton team in the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), which will be held in Chapel Hill in April, Wharton is putting itself on the map as a center of innovative investing.
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Matt Christensen
posted 4/19/08 @ 3:27 AM EST
Congratulations to Wharton on becoming more involved in the sustainable investment space. I have been working in the field since 2002 and am currently a director of 2 Sustainable VC funds. (Continued…)
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