The organising committee
The organising committee
Four university spin off entrepreneurs pitched their ideas at a Strathclyde Business School-run event with the aim of securing investment from a panel of judges.
Founding organiser, MBA student Varun Ghatge, said the Scottish Investment Den – a Dragon's Den-style event bringing together entrepreneurs with business angels/venture capitalists and four teams of MBA students – held on June 11 at Strathclyde Business School, had been a very successful and rewarding day for all concerned.
The competition saw university entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas and financial ask to the teams of MBA students, who acted as potential venture capitalists. After a round of questions, the teams determined the terms of the investment for each entrepreneur and entered into negotiation on those terms. Some teams were more successful than others in securing their deal but the fun and experience of the process was apparent in all the teams.
Shaf Rasul was one of the judges, joined by Gill MacAulay (Managing Director of Strathclyde University Incubator), Professor Nick Kuenssberg OBE (Horizon Co-Invest), John McNicol (Founder and CEO at Kelvin Capital) and Brian Martin (Director at PWC). The judges observed the MBA teams throughout the day and assessed their valuation, interpersonal and negotiation skills when dealing with the four entrepreneurs. The overall winner was Glasgow University who were presented with the Scottish Investment Den 2011 trophy.
The judges gave feedback to students and entrepreneurs and were extremely impressed with the calibre of all. So much so, the big surprise at the end of the day came from the judges who announced their intention to make their own investment proposal to Visume, a business supplying visual resumes set up by Strathclyde University students Christopher McCann and Michael Hayes. An exciting negotiation took place in front of all adding to the pressure for the Visume team, but they kept their cool and the deal was done!
The competition was open to MBA students from AMBA-accredited business schools in Scotland. Teams from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Robert Gordon and Strathclyde Universities took part, giving the Winners - Visume teamstudents the chance to develop their skills in evaluating real business plans and ideas.
Varun was helped in organising the event by fellow MBA students Marianne Nimmo, Ashley Almeida, Anupamanath Kumble, Rohit Sharma and Joshua Sauter, as well as Strathclyde Business School staff.