University of Washington venture capitalists best of the best – Grueling VCIC Contest Draws Praise as Venture Capitalist Training Ground

Daniel Primack, who writes the very popular daily Private Equity Week Wire for Thomson Venture Economics, is full of praise for the annual Venture Capital Investment Competition at UNC Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

“I’ve written this before, but will repeat it for the sake of overemphasis: VCIC is the best work-related event I get to attend each year,” Primack wrote last week after serving as a judge in the event. “Apologies to various party and conference organizers (including those at Daddy Thomson), but nowhere else do I learn as much nor stay consistently engaged.”

Patrick Vernon, who runs the program for Kenan-Flagler, graciously accepted the words of praise – then saluted the event himself.

“Stellar” is the word he used to describe the 2006 event. “It was a heck of a year.”

The final round of competition matching teams of college students was the culmination of 30 events, including a regional event in London.

“This is about venture capital, it’s also about learning, and it’s about entrepreneurship,” said Vernon, who is associate director of the Kenan-Flagler Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. Vernon participated as a student in the event, which was launched in 1998, for five years and has been involved in running it over the last four competitions. “There is no better way to learn about starting new ventures than to pretend to be an investor and looking at new ventures as potential investments.”

For more information about the VCIC, see: http://www.vcic.unc.edu

By Rick Smith, LocalTechWire

Full Story: http://www.localtechwire.com/article.cfm?u=13763

***

Budding UW venture capitalists best the rest

CompiledTimes tech Staff

For the second time in two years, MBA students at the University of Washington are the best budding venture capitalists in the country.

A team from the business school traveled to Chapel Hill, N.C., to win a Venture Capital Investment Competition, beating out such schools as New York University, Michigan, Colorado, Duke, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Southern California and Cambridge.

In the competition, the teams played the role of a venture capitalist by reading five business plans from real entrepreneurs seeking funding. They listened to pitches, met one-on-one, performed due diligence and chose a deal. Then the teams produced term sheets and presentations for the judges, who grilled them on their decisions.

Full Story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002934574_btdownload17.html