The IMD team has launched the 20th annual IMD Startup Competition. 25 Selected entrepreneurs across Switzerland will benefit from the free-of-charge support of MBA and EMBA students in 2018. While the MBA teams work in Lausanne, the EMBA team will travel to Silicon Valley to develop their business models and meet Venture Capitalists. Registration deadline is November 12th.
The IMD team, in collaboration with CTI/Innosuisse, VentureKick, MassChallenge and investiere, is looking for startups with innovative ideas to participate in the upcoming IMD startup challenge. The competition offers regional startups the opportunity to benefit from support of participants from the IMD MBA and the Executive MBA programs. the teams comprise of talented, experienced and motivated individuals who have been carefully screened to participate in two of the running business programs.
The MBA Startup Projects
Up to 15 companies will be selected to work with the fulltime MBAs. In January and May 2018, a team of 5 students will be assigned to each venture to help formalize its business model and financing plans. The start-ups will work closely and intensively with MBA while focusing exclusively on business-related issues of the new venture, for instance, customer value proposition, supply-chain management, market entry strategies, among others. Together, they will develop critical components of the business plan, to a point where they can present it to new funding sources.
The EMBA Startup Projects
Ten or more companies will be chosen to work with the EMBA team, who will help them to improve their strategy as well as prepare them to for the pitches in front of Venture Capitalists in California. The startups will travel to in two cohorts. The first group will travel from 9-14 September 2018 and the second group from 16-21 September 2018. A representative from every company will travel to Silicon Valley.
Eliglible to participate are early-stage companies that have a solid chance of market success, have a team that is curious and willing to open themselves up to a small group of management "students", are pleased to enter into both strategic and business model discussions, and can provide a good learning opportunity for our participants with timing that aligns with the IMD programs. Applications can be sent through the website. Registration closes on 12th November.
“Previous winners of our competition have done well. In the recently announced Top 100 Swiss Startups, 31 were ventures that had worked with us, including six of the top 10”, says Jim Pulcrano, Member of the IMD EMBA Teaching Team.
Some of the startups that have already benefited from IMD Startup Competition include: Abionic, AC Immune (went public last year), Artmyn, Bcomp, BestMile, BioVersys, CashSentinel, CombaGroup, Comparis, Dacuda, Dahushaper, Doodle, Endosense (acquired by St.Jude), FaceShift (acquired by Apple), Flyability, GlycArt (acquired by Roche), HPL (sold to Dow), Kooaba (acquired by Qualcomm), Lemoptix (acquired by Intel), L.E.S.S., Lunaphore, MindMaze ($100 mio investment last year), NetGuardians, NEXThink, picoDrill (sold to Asahi Glass), QGel, Spotme, ViDi (acquired recently) and Xeltis. And many, many more.
Picture: IMD Alumni event
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