Cash Prizes & Awards

Over $300,000 in cash and in-kind prizes will be awarded during the 2007 Rice Business Plan Competition. A $100,000 investment will be offered to the winner of the competition in addition to $20,000 cash.  All teams are guaranteed to win at least one cash prize.  Over $100,000 will be distributed in cash prizes (it is possible to win more than one cash prize) approximately $100,000 in in-kind prizes will be awarded to the twelve Finalist teams.   

Finalists

Grand Prize
	$100,000 Investment
	$20,000 Cash
	Branding Design & Marketing Commnications from                Brand Extract & The Padgett Group ($25,000)
	Free office space and services at Houston Technology Center ($15,000)
	Business Mentoring from Silver Fox Advisors ($3,600)
	Free web site and hosting from RENTthesite.com ($2,325)  Receives opportunity to present business idea to Houston Angel Network
	Roundtrip tickets on Continental Airlines ($3,000)

Austin Ventures Elevator Pitch Competition

Description of Team Prizes

1. Final Round:  The first place team from each of the six flights in the Preliminary Round (held on Friday) will advance to the Final Round on Saturday afternoon. All finalists are guaranteed to win a cash prize, plus a free web site and hosting services for one year.
   
2. Murphree Venture Partners Wildcard Round: The second place team from each of the six flights in the Preliminary Round will advance to the Wildcard Round on Saturday morning.  The winner of the Wildcard Round will advance to the Final Round on Saturday afternoon.  All teams who compete in the Wildcard Round are guaranteed to win a cash prize.
   
3. Challenge Round:  All teams that do not advance to the Finals or to the Wildcard Round, will advance to the Challenge Round on Saturday morning.  The teams will be divided into six new flights of four teams each.  All teams will receive a cash prize.
   
4. Austin Ventures Elevator Pitch Competition: All teams will compete in the Elevator Pitch Competition on Thursday Evening.  The top five winners of the Elevator Pitch Competition will win cash prizes.
   
5. Dow Sustainability Award:  Awarded to the team with the best breakthrough technology or business model that deals with the challenges of sustainability
   
6. British Consulate-General Best International Team:  Awarded to the best international team
    
7. Mir, Fox & Rodriguez Bank Hispanic Business Plan Award: Awarded to the Hispanic team with the most viable business plan
   
8. Fish & Richardson IP Powerhouse Award: For the team with the best intellectual property related business plan
   
9. Energy Valley Award: For the team with the best energy related business plan
   
10. DFJ MercuryI.T. Award:  Awarded to the team with the best I.T. or Wireless business plan
    
11. Essex Woodlands Life Science Award: For the team with the best life sciences, healthcare or biotechnology business plan
12. Houston Private Equity Association Outstanding Business Plan Award: For the team with the best written business plan
13. PaloAlto Software Outstanding Executive Summary Award:  For the team with the best written executive summary
14. Yaffe Deutser / Houston Business Journal Sales & Marketing Award:  Awarded to the team with the best sales and marketing plan
15. SimplexityMD Medical Device Award:  Awarded to the team wtih the best medical device

Overall, this means that teams who finish either first or second in their flight in the Preliminary Round are guaranteed to win a cash prize.  (Note:  There will be six industry specific flights, each containing six teams, in the Preliminary Round.  Only 36 total teams are allowed to enter the Competition.)  Teams that do not place first or second in the Preliminary Round will still have the opportunity to win a cash prize in the Challenge Round, the Elevator Pitch Competition, or as the recipient of one of the Sponsored Awards.

All prizes will be announced at the Awards Banquet on Saturday night from 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm.  Teams must be present to win.

Description of In-Kind Prizes and Conditions

Houston Technology Center (HTC)

The Grand Prize Winner will receive free office space and services for up to one year (or a value of $15,000, whichever comes sooner) at the Houston Technology Center at 410 Pierce Street in Houston, Texas.  The winning team must begin utilizing this office space within one year from the date of the Competition.  To qualify for this award, the winning company must be a technology-related company.

The HTC is a business accelerator that assists emerging technology companies within several key industries: Energy, Information Technology, Life Sciences and NASA-originated technologies. A non-profit 501 (c) (3) corporation, HTC helps Houston-based entrepreneurs grow their businesses by providing them with in-depth business guidance and access to capital and professional services. (http://www.houstontech.org/)

The HTC provides a number of services as part of their facility:

• New building and workspace with private, secured office suites
• 24/7 access and monitored security, greeter during office hours
• Kitchen facilities
• “Plug and Play” environment (provided by 1-service.com)
• Voice-over-IP telephone communication system w/ 800 minutes per person/per month/including domestic long distance
• Up to 1 Gigabit Ethernet service to every computer
• Firewall and network security staff on site 
• Unified messaging, fax and voice mails delivered to your e-mail box
• Personal local telephone number
• “Follow me” service phone/fax/e-mail)
• 1 hour of free IT desktop support per person, per month

• Commercial Printing Capability (Printer/fax/copier on each floor, 4-color printing system)
  • Printer/copier/fax on each floor networked to each connection
  • Copies priced at special HTC rate
• Conference facilities: Rooms for different sizes of meetings, from 4 to 200

Brand Extract and The Padgett Group

The Garnd Prize Winner will receive branding design and marketing communications services from The Padgett Group and Brand Extract.  The winning company will have 12 months from the date of the competition to take advantage of these services.  The services offered will be completed at the end of the 12 month period or when the total services up to a maxium value of $25,000 is reached, whichever comes first.

RENTthesite.com

The seven finalist teams will receive the RENTthesite.com “eComm” website package for one year. RENTthesite.com allows customers to create a robust, sophisticated website in less than 48 hours that can be easily self-managed.  The eComm Website Package includes the following: 

Hosting Services               New or Transfer Domain   Disk Space:  500MB  Data Transfer: 50GB/Month      Email: Unlimited Accounts Webmail    Site Statistics

Web Site and Content Management Rich Text Editing (WYSIWYG) Unlimited Pages    Automatic Navigation Site Map    File Manager    Library of Page Styles and /images       Cut and Paste from any application    Upload Files and Pictures   Email Blast    News/Press Releases  Calendar/Schedule

Web Site Design Pre-Design Site Selection (over 2000) Logo Integration eCommerce Shopping-Cart   eCommerce Integration (Paypal)    Search Engine Submission (Submit Express)

The value of this package for one year is $2,325 per team.  The complimentary 1-year web site for the finalists must be utilized within the first 18 months following the competition.  Therefore, finalists have from April 2007 to September 2008 to utilize this free offer.  At the end of this period, finalists must pay for any ongoing web services.

Silver Fox Advisors

The top three teams will receive business mentoring and consulting from Silver Fox Advisors.  This coaching will include three 3-hour sessions with each of the three teams, involving 1-2 Silver Fox Advisors at each session.  The following conditions apply:

• Services will be available to the top three winning teams for up to 12 months from the date of the competition.  The three sessions with each team would need to be completed within this 12-month period.  (The offer will expire within 12 months, even if the team had not taken advantage of these services.)
• Services will be provided in Houston.  The winning teams will need to travel to Houston otherwise these services will be provided via teleconference.  (No travel will be required on the part of the Silver Fox Advisors group.)

Bank of America

The Grand Prize Winner will receive one year of free Treasury Management Services, up to a maximum value of $5,000 from Bank of America.  The following conditions of the award will apply 

• These services are only guaranteed to the Grand Prize winner relocating to or already located in Houston.  If the Grand Prize winner does not reside in Houston, Bank of America has the sole right to determine if services will be offered to a different Finalist.
• Treasury Management Services include Payments Management, Receipts Management, and Liquidity Management.  Specific services to be provided under this award will be defined by the Bank of America.

These services will be available for up to a 12 month period and this period must commence by July 1, 2007.

Continental Airlines Tickets 

The winning team will receive up to five free roundtrip airline tickets, one for each member of the team up to five members (the maximum team size for this Competition).  If a team has less than five individuals, the team will receive the number of free airline tickets equal to the number of their team members (e.g., two, three, or four).

These tickets are subject to black-out dates and other restrictions.  Please read the information provided with the tickets to see the complete list of restrictions.

(Note:  delivery of all in-kind prizes is the responsibility of the supplier and not the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship or Rice University)