University of Arkansas Wins Three Qualifying Contests for Top Business Plan Competition

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A third graduate student team from the University of Arkansas has taken the top prize in a 2012 business plan contest that carries an automatic berth for the Venture Labs Investment Competition. This marks the first time any university has won three qualifying contests for the Super Bowl of business plan competitions in the same year.

A team led by Ellen Brune, a doctoral student in chemical engineering, won the competition at the University of Nebraska on March 13, another in a string of victories by teams from the University of Arkansas.

“The University of Arkansas has been excelling in national and international business plan competitions since 2009, but we reached new heights in 2012,” said Carol Reeves, associate vice provost for entrepreneurship and a professor in the department of management at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. “This solidifies the University of Arkansas’ reputation as one of the preeminent schools in the world for the development of student start-ups.”

She said 2012 was the first time since the Moot Corp Competition – now known as the Venture Labs Investment Competition – was founded in 1987 that three teams from the same university have won qualifying competitions. Reeves has advised 14 national first-place-winning Walton College teams, accounting for more than $1.25 million in cash prizes since 2002. She had three teams win national competitions in 2010, but one of those was not an automatic qualifier for the Venture Labs Investment Competition.

Only 40 teams from throughout the world qualify for the Venture Labs Investment Competition. The competition takes place in May at the University of Texas at Austin, where teams compete for more than $100,000 in cash and prizes. Investors regularly attend these competitions, getting a sneak-peek at up-and-coming entrepreneurs and new ventures as they decide where to invest their money. Students, meanwhile, get a direct channel for spreading the word about their business plans. Brune said her business plan is one to help “manufacture protein drugs faster and more cost effectively so that they can get into the hands of patients who need them.” The other member of her team is her father, Ricky Draehn.

“Qualifying for VLIC is simultaneously awesome and terrifying,” Brune said. “We will be going up against the best of the best, two of which are my fellow Arkansas teams. I just hope one of our teams wins. It would be a good show for the state of Arkansas.”

In January, the Learning DifferentiatED team, led by its president and chief executive officer, Barry James, a doctoral candidate in the microelectronics-photonics program, earned first place at the IBK Capital-Ivey Business Plan Competition, Canada’s premier graduate student business plan competition. That team — which also consisted of Brandon Hill, a managerial M.B.A. student and chief business development officer; Senthil Raman, an M.B.A. student and chief operating officer; Brandon Wright, a master of accountancy student and chief financial officer; Murali Natarajan, chief technology officer; and Chris Cambridge, chief strategy officer — created a business plan for a company that improves retention and success rates of adults preparing for the General Education Development test.

For its first place finish, Learning DifferentiatED received a prize of $20,000 and an automatic berth to the competition in Austin.

In February, a group of five Walton College graduate students earned the top prize at the Brown-Forman Cardinal Challenge at the University of Louisville. Their business plan for SpatiaLink Solutions, a company rooted in supply chain management, reinvents retailers’ shelf planning process to insure that customers find the products they want, when they want them — thus limiting lost sales for the store.

For their victory, the SpatiaLink team was awarded $15,000 and an automatic berth in the Venture Lab Investment Competition. The five Walton College students who make up the SpatiaLink team are Aaron Huffaker, chief executive officer; Steve Fortner, chief product officer; Bethany Haefner, chief business development officer; Nate Allen, chief technology officer; and John Miller, chief financial officer.

Reeves said the continued success of such teams means a bright future for the new companies they are poised to become and for the state.

“The three 2012 University of Arkansas teams have shown they have what it takes to join their predecessors in receiving start-up investment and successfully getting their companies off the ground,” she said. “We are excited about them joining the other student start-ups from the past few years to create well-paying jobs in Arkansas.”