CHAPTER 1: THE PITCH: The entrepreneur gets a taste of pitching to angels

“Everything will be free on eFree”.

“Free?” I asked.

“Yes, free! We’ll give away the newest and most updated products to our users. We’re going to revolutionize market research by giving away free samples to our users”.

“So how does it work?”

“Well, we help companies distribute their samples to their target audience and follow-up with questionnaires. The company will then get a full market intelligence report based on the analysis which we provide. It’ll be more than half the price of current market research companies.”

Kian Teck stood bravely in front of the 45 seat seminar room. His right hand held the presentation mouse firmly as he pointed the audience to the first of his three slides.

We were in Singapore Management University, where I was rounding up an entire semester of Entrepreneurial Finance. The 15 weeks spent in class exceeded expectations and as part of their course work, student teams developed business plans to pitch to VCs.  The school was located right in the center of the small country, and a stone’s throw away from the shopping district. On a Friday evening like this, the noise from cars trying to beat the traffic lights poured into the room, reminding you that the weekend had already begun.

Only recently, Singapore’s GDP grew double-digits to pull the small country out of poverty into a developed nation. This shift had already made the last generation business leaders rich, rewarding entrepreneurs who started manufacturing and service businesses. Riding the next wave was different, and investors in Singapore now had to look for disruptive innovation that can quickly scale to regional or global markets.  Like many governments in today’s world, Singapore sees entrepreneurship as the way to enhance domestic job and value creation.

Dressed in his crisp white shirt and black pants, Kian Teck stood in front of a well-prepared PowerPoint presentation. His team, were lined up at his side, look anxiously around the room like eagles looking for prey, carefully searching for any reaction from the crowd and their professor. Their task was to convince the class in three minutes that they’re business was worth investing in, a difficult yet powerful test of their product.

“Our business model makes sense because we are an internet business, with a low burn rate and an unlimited upside potential.”

Most internet business’s pitch start with the same strategy – provides a service for free, grow its user base by astronomical proportions and earn advertising revenue. Sooner or later they will show the famous “J” curve, telling the same story of 2-3 years of losses and many more years of profitability. After experiencing what it is like to grow a business from scratch, you start to lose your optimism.

Many people jump on the idea of an internet company because of the great potenial it has for allowing their product to reach the world. Like inexperienced pirates looking for lost treasure, they soon realize that the journey is more dangerous and perilous than told. Starting off with a simple map showing a straight forward route to the treasure, they soon find out that their journey will take them through many some of the most trying and desperate storms. Ask any serial entrepreneur to show you his vbattle scars, and you’ll find out that after exhausting all the intelligence needed to steer the business, start-ups are at the mercy of forces larger than themselves.

This makes the pitch a very crucial initial contact point between angels and entrepreneurs. We can summarize these criteria into 4 broad questions:

1. Characteristics of a successful company

Just like other asset classes, the savvy angel investor is one who understands the underlying business seeking financing. The type of business angels invest in should fit their expertise and asset-risk allocation. Depending on your background, you may want to invest in a cash-generative business over a venture-backed risky investment.

Incorporation

From an entrepreneur’s perspective, incorporation formally puts the founder’s skin in the game. A newborn start-up with life is born and the founder’s vision of the business is brought to reality.  Although incorporation may not be high on the agenda of entrepreneurs at the beginning, investors look to it as a sign of commitment, a sort of self-validating signal that these entrepreneurs mean business. Without incorporation, hosts of financing options are closed to the entrepreneurs – incubators, early stage VCs, government grants etc.

Does it have intellectual property?

Intellectual property (IP) can come in many shapes and sizes (from the trademark logo to the revolutionary product). The two salient features about IP, which entrepreneurs must consider, are the IP’s protectability and commercial value. Protection of IP can come in many ways, the most costly of which is the application of a patent. In the early stage of a venture, this is not an absolute necessity unless the start-up has sufficient cash flow to finance the application of the patent. The cheapest way to maintain a company’s secrets is to maintain a ‘black box’ strategy when pitching to outsiders. This just means you tell them minimal information they need to know about how your product works and focus on how your product can transform inputs into real outputs.

Compliance

“We are targeting consumer products which have high turnover and offer a unique value proposition to our clients. They will be able to reach their potential customers with almost no cost at all.” Kian Teck continued.

I looked back at my watch; he’s doing well so far, covering much of the business model in the first one and a half minutes. The session was tailored as an elevator pitch and the only rule was that everything you wanted to say had to be done in three minutes. If an entrepreneur couldn’t interest you in those 3 minutes, chances are that you won’t invest.

Elevator pitches does wonders for angels. Firstly it saves you time from having to sit through a half-hour presentation on a business idea you know will not take off. Secondly it shows you how much thought and preparation the entrepreneur gave to his pitch. A good pitch must hit on the key points and issues and not waste time on less important things. Within 3 minutes, Kian Teck was expected to cover eFree’s target market, business model, competitors and milestones.

Finding the right match

Getting the business plan polished is not the only worry, as Francis, a Singapore angels says, “there has to be some chemistry involved. When I work with companies or asked to work with companies, I spent a few months trying to develop chemistry with the entrepreneur. Many a times the entrepreneur, for some reason, don’t feel you can add value to them. You can’t help everybody, you only help those who believe that you bring something to the table that they don’t have. Just because you put in money, it doesn’t mean you have the right to do things in the company. You really have to be yourself – you have to let them know that your interests are aligned with theirs, and you’re not there to exploit them.”

“Our competitors are larger market research companies who are not targeting local small and medium companies. This puts us in a good position to provide this service to this range of companies.”

I quickly flipped up my laptop screen and did a quick search for any similar businesses which may already be around. As Sun Tzu said, ‘know your enemy and know yourself’. Any entrepreneur who does not have a firm grasps of competitor business models and value proposition probably will not know differentiate himself.

“The first two years will be tough for us”, he continued, “we have to grow our user base to a critical mass in order to attract our anchor clients.”

“How exactly will you attract these initial clients and users?”

“We have a marketing plan, and will build the two simultaneously…”

This is where business school students shine – marketing, finance and corporate development. However if you look at the profile of successful entrepreneurial teams, there

‘The End’

Kian Teck smiled and gestured to his team as they ended the presentation. Now it was time for the next most important part of the pitch, the question and answer. Just like the wolf’s strong blows in the story of the Three Little Pigs, questions will destroy businesses built on weak thinking. I chuckled.

At the end of the day, the pitch only opens further conversation. Angels and VCs back the people behind the plan, for good reasons. Research from Harvard shows that entrepreneurs with a track record of success are much more likely to succeed than first-time entrepreneurs and those who have previously failed. In particular, they exhibit persistence in selecting the right industry and time to start new ventures. Entrepreneurs with demonstrated market timing skill are also more likely to outperform industry peers in their subsequent ventures.

“What type of products will you be targeting?” I asked, wanting to start with the easy ones before working my way down to the tougher, more prying questions. The question and answer is the most revealing time of the pitch. It shows you the team’s strength, their understanding of the business or markets and how serious they are. Just like a VC pitch, angel investors need to probe deep enough to find out where the teams’ weaknesses lie, and see if there can be a complementary fit in skill and experience.

“We’ll be targeting products which have higher turnover, where it will make sense for companies to use our cheap and effective market research channel.”

“Why would companies give their samples to you instead of doing it themselves or going through a bigger agency?”

Silence entered the room. Everyone in the room watched as the Kian Teck looked at his team mates for support. Someone must have had an answer to this question.

“We offer them the same access to the market but with a cheaper costs and shorter turnaround time. We’ll have their reports done up quicker than our competitors.” Kian Teck said, finally breaking the seconds of silence.

I quickly scribbled onto my notes, ‘needs more thought on competitor value propositions and business model’.

Entrepreneurs need to put a substantial amount of thinking into their initial business model and value proposition, but they also need to be flexible. Sticking to the initial business model turns out to be a good way to fail. Successful companies will always change their plans as they receive feedback from the market. <insert reference from Onset Ventures>. As Joichi Ito, a renowned and successful angel investor puts it, “If you’re not embarrassed by your first launch, you’ve released too late because the users are going to tell you what to do. You really need to just get out there, get people using your product and get feedback.”

“Any mentors or advisors you’ve spoken to?”

“Not at the moment.”

Another red flag for any pitch is empty advisor seats. Unless entrepreneurs are experienced in the industry, they usually need the help of advisors or angel investors to open doors for the company. Advisory seats and angel investing should help mitigate this gap. If this team was serious in this venture, they would have to talk to the correct people.

Paul Graham writes “Paradoxically, funding very early stage start-ups is not mainly about funding. All good investors supply a combination of money and help. But these scale differently. At our end, money is almost a negligible factor”. What good start-ups are looking for is smart money, money which can enhance their value proposition and increase customer acquisition.

‘Ding’, the second bell went off. A signal that their time was up, on a Friday evening everyone kept a close watch of time. The bell also meant that it was time for the verdict.

I picked up the ‘needs more work’ card. The students were told there would be three possible verdicts – ‘forget it’, ‘needs more work’ and ‘I’ll write you a cheque’; the replies they would receive from would be investors in a real setting.

If I were an angel investing thinking of making investments, my journey had just begun. The entire process can be quickly summed up in four stages – sourcing, screening, investing and coaching.

A key thing to do after the pitch is to bounce a business plan off to trusted people and investors. This gives you a better perspective of the business especially if you do not have particular domain expertise. Using networks in this manner also help you diversify risks through co-investments and may open doors to a good deal if it comes by another angel’s doors. I pulled out my smart phone and forwarded the business plan to a trusted friend and serial entrepreneur, R. Mariani.

I watched the last students walk out of the seminar room as I packed my things to leave. ‘Not bad pitches for first-timers’ I thought to myself as I went home.

The next morning I opened my email to find an email from R. Mariani:

“I find the business plan complete and clear, and I had a pleasure to read it several times. I clearly understand the value proposition but I have few comments related to my past experience in selling things online in platform such as CNET.com for software. CNET offers powerful packages for the industry to let users “try” and/or “buy” softwares and today, they have 38m users visiting their website daily. Now a problem emerges: how can my product be noticed in the thousands of products they represent? It requires expensive marketing, very neat brochures, proper keywords and even a premium to be paid for being noticed online!

If you target all the Small Medium Enterprises and they want to use business federations and networking sessions to get them: i think it is a great way to initialize their database. I guess the question an SME will have is three-fold, “One, how can you guarantee me that the consumer will “see” my product? (how much I need to pay extra to be on your top search results?) (as C|NET). Two, what happens if the product is not returned? Third, what happens if the product is evaluated by a competitor?

I understand that they have plans to get consumer signing up, but I think there is an extra marketing cost for getting these consumers to sign-up. They mentioned booth etc… but they may need to do more.
First. Marketing via ads – does the SME will put an ad somewhere and say “try it for free with eFree?” ? Second. viral marketing – what makes the user come and sign up? there must a product (or benefit) which is used to attract users (free l’Oreal etc…)
Third, can the team do social marketing – plugs to social networks;

I smiled. The team has plenty of work to do.

This is Part I of Chapter 1. To be continued in Part 2.

Tan Yinglan is a Kauffman Fellow and is serving on boards of innovative growth ventures and venture capital funds in Asia. He was the first director of 3i Venturelab China, a joint-venture between private equity firm 3i (LSE:III) and INSEAD, one of the world’s leading business schools.

Educated at Harvard, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon, Yinglan is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Nanyang Business School and teaches the Masters program in Technopreneurship & Innovation (Chinese). He now works with the Singapore Government to enhance the innovation and enterprise landscape in Singapore.

Daryl Tan sits in PwC’s advisory department, a dynamic and capable team that does financial due diligence and strategy advisory. His deal experience has brought him to various parts of China and into the board room of pre-IPO companies.

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Way Of The VC  (supported by Venturepunt) brings you… Upcoming Venture-backed IPOs
Greetings, Sorry for the radio silence – I have been working on a new book with a top-tier hedge fund manager and I wanted to give you a sneak preview. Brief Synopsis: Imagine telling your grandchildren you bought shares of Google (GOOG) when the company first went public. That would explain the Lamboghini, the house on the Riviera, and the 40-foot yacht. But for every Google millionaire, there are dozens of other investors who’ve lost money buying hot new issues, or IPOs. Venture-backed companies that successfully enter the public markets represent a critical job-creation engine for the economy.  One key to making investment decisions is to watch what the top-tier venture capitalists are doing to their portfolio companies and — better yet — to anticipate their moves. Their decisions will move markets, and you want to profit from these moves. Case in point is Google, backed by Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins. 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Case Study: Qihoo Chinese Internet company Qihoo 360 went public with a bang on March 30th on the New York Stock Exchange, with shares immediately doubling at the start of trading. The Internet software company sells antivirus software and security services. Should you buy the Qihoo IPO? We introduce you to the concept of U P D I V E (which will be further discussed in detail in Chapter 2-7 of the book).Let’s examine the Qihoo via the lens of UPDIVE. The U is Underwriter. The pedigree of the underwriters matters. Qihoo’s underwriter was UBS AG and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. One would ideally like the major firms (e.g. Goldman Sachs) to be the underwriter as these firms carry reputational risk in bringing a firm public, and do not merely want to collect fees. P stands for Products i.e. New Products. Other than Qihoo’s flagship product, 360 Anti-Virus, an anti-virus application to protect user’s computers against trojan horses, viruses, worms, adware, and other forms of malware; Qihoo has a suite of new products at its timeof IPO. This included 360 Mobile Safe, a security program for the Google Android, Apple iOS, and Nokia Symbian smartphone operating systems. D stands for Direction of Macro Market – First and foremost, the market direction should be bullish. At March 30th, the Dow Jones was facing one of the strongest bull market since the 2008 recession. I– Industry Leader. Qihoo also develops Web-based games and makes the second-most used Internet browser in China, behind Microsoft’s (MSFT, Fortune 500) Internet Explorer. With 300 million Internet users in China — a number that’s rapidly rising – (though not a industry leader) second place is an attractive position to be in. The V signifies Venture Capital. Qihoo attracted significant interest from U.S. venture capital firms, receiving backing from big-name VCs such as Sequoia Capital and Highland Capital Partners. The E is Executive Team. Qihoo 360 is led by a seasoned and visionary management team with extensive industry experience and proven track record in China’s Internet industry.  Most noteworthy is the cofounder, Mr. Zhou Hong Yi who has over ten years of managerial and operational experience in China’s Internet industry. Prior to founding our company, Mr. Zhou was a partner at IDG Ventures Capital since September 2005, a global network of venture capital funds, where he assisted small- to medium-sized software companies in sourcing funding to support their growth. Mr. Zhou was the chief executive officer of Yahoo! China from January 2004 to August 2005. The roots of Qihoo 360 reach back to 3721, Yahoo China, and Alibaba. In October 1998, Hongyi Zhou launched 3721 and its flagship product, 3721 Assistant. 3721 was a browser plug-in that enabled web users to submit Chinese characters instead of alphabetic letters in the browser’s URL bar. But 3721 Assistant was also a controversial piece of plug-in, sometimes called “malware”, as it would install itself without asking for permission and was difficult to uninstall. Chinese netizens gave Hongyi Zhou the nickname, “The Father of Malware.” By 2003, 3721 Assistant reached 70 million users and over 80% market share. On November 21, 2003, Yahoo China acquired 3721 at which point 3721 was renamed Yahoo Assistant. In December 2004, Hongyi Zhou became the Chairman of Yahoo China and Xiangdong Qi became Yahoo China Vice-Chairman as well as CEO of 3721. At that point Zhou said he would take one to two years to develop innovative new products and methods. But the new attempts were not very successful and it was instead a competitor, Baidu, that went public in August of 2005. In July 2005, Hongyi Zhou suddenly resigned from Yahoo China and the next month Xiangdong Qi left too. This was right when Alibaba purchased Yahoo China and in an interview Mr. Qi said, “If Yahoo China hadn’t been acquired by [Alibaba CEO] Jack Ma, I’d still be there as I have big ambitions for Yahoo China… but now I can only start anew.” The end result: Qihoo 360 (QIHU) priced its stock at $14.50 a share, but shares opened at $27 and quickly soared as high as $33.40. The company raised more than $175 million in its IPO. Disclosure: I purchased 500 lots of stock at an average price of $28 and sold for an average of $33. Coming up next week: LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, has set a target price of $32 to $35 a share for its IPO, expected next week, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. LinkedIn hopes to raise as much as $274 million, and if the IPO is successful, the company should be worth over $3 billion after the offering. Trading will commence on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LNKD. LinkedIn is just the latest internet startup to go public this year amid an increasingly frothy IPO market. LinkedIn Corp. increased its planned initial public offering, valuing the largest professional social-networking website at more than $3 billion. The company now plans to sell as much as $315.6 million of shares to expand the business, according to SEC reports. To find out what I think of the LinkedIn IPO, let’s continue the conversation online (click like to see the discussion) or in person here. To wisdom and beyond, Way Of The VC Team (Pls also check out our new and improved website) “The Way of the VC” is the best book I have read on Venture Capital with thoughtful advice for the entrepreneur. Yinglan Tan captures the wisdom of the ages, with the vision of an oracle in this book that captures how a venture capitalist thinks, and how the best ones act. Timothy C. Draper, Founder and Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson This exclusive report has been brought to you with the generous support of:
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At the request of valued friend and colleague Pierre Hennes, I was invited to give a presentation at the venture capital roundtable to a group of senior Armenian Delegates.

Looking at Armenia‘s geography, it is sited in a hot spot between Turkey and Iran, which probably accounts for the fact that the Armenians I know are tough as nails and full of grit and determination. I also found out that Kirk Kekorian, distinguished entrepreneur and owner of MGM, is Armenian by descent. Little surprise. Another facet which impressed me was the drive and determination by Armenian authority in their quest to enhance their innovation and enterprise landscape. My hypothesis is that government can only go so far in setting the stage and the private sector has to take over and in the process hopefully become “fabulously” rich. Risk and reward are undoubtedly intertwined.

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An entrepreneur, she started a provision shop, bootstrapping on $200 which she borrowed. (Grandfather was the accountant and grandmother ran the operations, and attend to customers and suppliers – business development in those days.) She started with selling fish in China but moved on to selling life’s staples, rice, salt when she moved to Singapore. She was a jack of all trades – and was involved from a a wide range of activities – growing bean sprouts from beans, washing rubber and making belachan (chilli paste).

She was strategic in her business dealings. When regular customer wished to purchase supplies from her and she ran out of stock, she would not tell them that she ran out of stock but would source from others and rather sell at a loss than to encourage her regular customers from going to others.

People who remembered her from her younger days remembered her as a hummingbird perpetually in motion. If she entrusted someone with a task and it was not done immediately to her requirements or speed, she would take it up and do it herself. Her diligence rubbed on me – she was always on the move. In her hundred years, she probably accomplished twice what most people accomplished.

I remembered her as diplomatic. From my mom’s anecdote, she never said no to a customer who haggled on price, she simply pitched less rice off the weighing scale. In her seventies, she was still active in selling bird’s nest.

A lot of us get blinded by our careers and neglect the important things and people around us. Her children and grandchildren were clearly her priority. She left her husband in her fifties and only saw her husband, my grandfather, once when he came over to singapore. This was all for the sake of giving her children and grandchildren a better life in singapore. In her seventies, she even came to my primary school (Maris Stella) to buy lunch for me during recess. I can’t underscore the devotion she showed to her grandchildren. She even met with an car accident while she bought lunch for me, which I still can’t entirely forgive myself for. She praised her children when they did well and was always encouraging.

From my mom’s anecdote, she was entrepreneurial and a risk taker for her family. She made trips to indonesia to smuggle her grand children over to Singapore (on a small shipping boat fraught with danger) to lead a better life. Most of her grandchildren are leading successful lives in singapore and arguably this would not have been possible without grandma.

She singlehandedly brought up a brood of grandchildren, multi tasking before the word – multi-tasking – was even coined. She probably coined the term Mompreneur and Grandmapreneur. One of my aunt recalled that when times were busy at the provision shop, she would put some of the grandchildren in buckets or boxes which she will tuck safely underneath a table.

My grandma was not only a grandma, she was also a mom to many of her grandchildren. Many of my cousins feel that she was closer to her than her mom. Grandchildren all wanted to repay the debt they owned, but inevitably each have their own brood. Most (including myself) feel a sense of guilt that they should have spent more time with her.

Tenacity is her defining trait. She was a fighter – numerous times she recovered from the brink of death. A car accident in her seventies, a fall which left a nasty gash on the head.

Grandma has a a strong fighting spirit and also thrived on independence. In her eighties, when her sons / grandsons wanted to lead her across the road, she would shake their hands away.

Focus on the important things. She is mindful of the important things in life. In the eighties, this sense of focus became more apparent. She will ask me about my wage (upon knowing the figure she is content) and whether I gave portion of it to my parents ( to which i said yes)

In her clearer moments, she asks about her birthday. (She prefers a banquet and frowns when we mention a buffet.) That was always the highlight of her year and to which the gathering of children and grandchildren brought her a lot of joy. On her 100th birthday, we were delighted with her strong vitality.

I recalled she took me marketing ( going to the wet market) and indulged me with 7-11 ice cream and a comic. That was one of my earliest memory and my recollection that life’s simple pleasure. She loved durians and chicken rice but would always save it for her children / grandchildren. It was only in her later years that we indulged her and bought durians, chicken rice and coffee every week.

I recalled playing Blackjack with her. I am always impressed with very sharp mind despite her age. Her knack for numbers is astounding. I was told that she can remember accounts and do complex calculations in her head in her younger days.

On the hospital bed, she murmured that grandfather is coming to take her away. I could still remember her auguish when one of her daughters died. I felt a tinge of sadness but perhaps she will be in a happier place.

One thing that I will ask myself : will i remember this during my deathbed?

Are these people who will be at my deathbed?

If yes, I should go the extra mile. If not, I should ask myself: is this absolutely necessary. Are there better ways to spend my time, and should i be spending them on folks which matter, I.e. Family.

Grandma, may you rest in peace.

Tan Yinglan 3 Dec 2010

Image via Wikipedia

Came across this budding entrepreneur whom impressed me on her dream. Read her interview transcript below:

Name of Entrepreneur / Venture and Company Motto:

Name of Entrepreneur : Yulia Saksen

Venture: Y’SAKSEN

Company Motto : Bridging imagination and realization.

I was born in Indonesia and migrated to Singapore in 1999. Upon graduating in Industrial Design from Nanyang Polytechnic of Singapore in 2006, I worked at Shimano, a leading fishing rod and bicycle manufacturer as an industrial designer. As a lead designer, I was responsible of handling cosmetic appearance design for fishing rods for Southeast Asia, Europe and Japan market. In 2009, I moved from Singapore to Milan to attain the Master Degree in Design at Domus Academy. After 5 years of experience in the creative industry, I founded y’saksen design studio to help clients added value through design, sales and marketing.

We are in the business of making our clients’ business successful. At y’saksen design studio, we help our clients identify their niche qualities. To differentiate their nature of business from current

or even future competitors in the market, and at the same time creating communications that gives our clients unique, clear and powerful voices. We believe in a close working relationship with our clients; And we commit to listen to their visions and how we can turn them into reality.

We provide holistic design services that bridge design, sales, and marketing to create sustainable value for our clients. Good design connects products and services, brand value, and consumer experiences. We understood that, hence we can help our clients stay relevant and competitive in this drastically changing economic landscape.

Our company has three revenue models. They are:

1. Strategic Engagement

By providing design services to our client a strategic long term basis.

2. Partnership

By collaborating with our clients (usually start-ups or young companies), providing them with design services, and in return for royalty or equity.

3. Civil work

Occasionally, we also provide ‘pro bono’ projects for government or non-profit organization as a form of social revenue for our designers and communities.

Why is the addressable market you are targeting interesting? * Is this a large growing market?

Yes, Singaporeans are starting to understand design and desire for it. On the other hand, westerners are finding it hard to ignore Asian design now due to the economic movement. Good design will become imperative for any businesses to succeed.

I would have started earlier; to invent, experiment, take risks, make mistakes and have fun!

We have not gone through any fund-raising. However, as we are expanding, we are now looking into various funding schemes to support our growth.

Our design studio, y’saksen understood that good design connects products and services, brand value, and consumer experiences. Hence, we can help our clients add value, stay relevant and competitive in this ever changing economic landscape.

I think this article is worth a read

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David is a friend whom I got to know in my journey as an author. I thank him for his support of Way Of The VC. He ordered a signed copy of Way Of The VC to be shipped to his home in Canada – it was a flattering gesture and the first time that I realised that the autographed copy of my book was in such demand.

One kind gesture deserves another – I wanted to help him pass a message. Genesis Facility Foundation, which David founded, has launched the Canada India Sustainable Technology Venture Competition (CISTVC). The Competition will be between qualified management and technical schools/institutes in Canada and their counterparts in India and will invite graduate students (final year) from respective MBA Programs, Science and Technology Programs, Climatology and related Engineering Programs, to develop commercially viable, clean and sustainable technologies for combating and reversing climate change. This would be a Canada-Indian education event which would propel the best and brightest students into thinking of climate change mitigation and develop alternative energy solutions. Schools and institutes may send up to two representative teams to the competition. Each team would submit a business plan for its technology.

The business plans must meet traditional return-on-investment and profitability standards, while demonstrating eco-efficiency and achieving sustainability on a project-by-project basis. Approximately eight qualifying teams will be selected to make their presentation and compete at the Finals in the host/partner institution. A panel of judges will be composed of eminent faculty, venture capitalists and industrialists. Winners of the CISTVC will receive cash awards and will be introduced to top tier venture capitalists.

The CISTVC will be the first of a series of Bilateral Sustainable Technology Venture Competitions with US India and US China Sustainable Technology Venture Competitions being planned to follow the CISTVC.

For more info, pls contact:

David Yates,

Founder and Chairman,

Genesis Facility Foundation

www.genesisfacility.org