All the budding entrepreneurs pay attention, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) has something interesting in store for you.
IIM-B is conducting a business plan contest called Bzzwings for young and budding entrepreneurs from top engineering institutes and business schools across India. The contest will see angel investors funding aspiring student entrepreneurs.
NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), which is IIM-B’s entrepreneurship and incubation centre, is organizing a ‘Shark Tank’ for the very first time. ‘Shark Tank’ would have angel investors coming in and funding student business plans.
According to G Sabarinathan, Chairperson, NSRCEL, this business plan contest will act as a platform for identifying and nurturing some serious entrepreneurial teams from a sea of entrepreneurs and then helping them start up.
‘Shark Tank’ will be a small five minute rapid fire Question-Answer round where questions will be hurled at contestants by potential investors and the contestants will have to survive them.
IIM-B had invited business pitches earlier this year from students of top colleges, institutes of India such as Xavier Institute of Management-Bhubaneswar, MDI-Gurgaon, Indian School of Business- Hyderabad, Institute of Rural Management, Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies and Delhi College of Engineering, among others.
The top ten pitches will be awarded by getting funding from the ‘Shark Tank’ angel investors. The top two pitches will be additionally rewarded with funding from Indian Angles Network and Mumbai Angles. The top two would also get rent free incubation support from NSRCEL for a period of one year.
The business plan contest will be a part of Vista, IIM-B’s annual business fest. The ‘Shark Tank’ would see two investors offer seed funding to one social venture and one for profit venture each. VGN Prakash and Ubhaya are the two investors. The ‘Shark Tank’ will act as a means of providing seed funding to out of the box deserving ideas and the right to spot these deserving ideas rests wholly on investors.
The ‘Shark Tank’ investors will have full liberty to choose anyone from the top eight teams. An Entrepreneurship Conclave has also been organized after the ‘Shark Tank’.
The top eight teams have been selected from over 120 entries from across India. The process of selecting 8 teams from 120 entries was entirely managed by the NSRCEL and students. The selection process included four rounds of rigorous screening, progressing from 120 to 64, then 64 to 32 and then finally from 32 to the top 8.
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