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The Greater Boston area offers a few options for getting capital, such as: Consulting with angel investors, going through venture capital firms, taking a low-interest loan from entities like MassDevelopment or joining a startup accelerator like MassChallenge.
With that said, Boston startups also have ample opportunity to join local pitch competitions. These events are a great first step to get exposure, cash and connections— rest assured that some of the most prominent VCs in the area keep these competitions on their radar.
Below, we’ve rounded up a few of these, highlighting pertinent details like prize totals, yearly frequency and more. Note that we didn’t include Demo Days from local accelerators, which often require participants to have gone through its full program to pitch; but we added some pitch competitions organized by local schools and universities—events that usually require one (and only one!) of the team members to be affiliated with the school.
Is there a competition we missed? Let Lucy know at lmaffei@americaninno.com
- Who: 2019 will be the seventh edition of this startup pitch competition organized by the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge.
- What: The Beantown Throwdown features student teams representing a cross-section of local colleges and universities who will pitch their startups for recognition, as voted by the audience, as the winner of this annual event.
- Where: Boston.
- When: Historically, once a year—around November. In 2019, the competition will take place during the week of Nov. 18, during Global Entrepreneurship Week.
- Notable Winners: Past winners include AirWorks (an aerial mapping software startup that raised $2.3 millon in January 2019), Emily Levy from Mighty Well (formerly PICCPerfect) and Wafaa Arbash from WorkAround.
- Prize: Last year, winners received a package of prizes intended to help student innovators move their ventures forward by providing connections to experts in the community, entrepreneurial education opportunities, market visibility and startup tools.
- Who: Now in its 30th year, the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is a single competition composed of three independent, increasingly intensive contests: Pitch, Accelerate, and Launch.
- What: "The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition has brought together students and researchers from across MIT and Greater Boston to launch their talent, ideas, and technology into leading companies."
- Where: MIT.
- When: From October through May.
- Notable Winners: Tactile (Pitch top prize winner for their technology that converts printed text to Braille); aam (Now rebranded as Aavia: Pitch audience prize winner for its smart birth control blister pack and app duo); Lightmatter (Launch winner for its new kind of artificial intelligence hardware that is powered by light, rather than electrical signals)
- Prize: For Pitch: $5,000 Grand Prize, plus $2,000 Audience Choice Award; For Launch, $100,000 Grand Prize.
- Who: Hosted by Babson College, Rocket Pitch is an annual event where student and alumni entrepreneurs from Babson, Olin, and Wellesley colleges pitch their business ideas to a large audience of students, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers.
- What: “Each entrepreneur is given three minutes and three PowerPoint slides to quickly and succinctly deliver the critical differentiating elements of their business ideas. Pitches happen in rapid succession in multiple rooms.”
- Where: Babson College.
- When: Historically, once a year in the fall semester.
- Notable Winners: Past participants have included: Gravyty (which uses AI to help fundraisers at nonprofit organizations raise money), JumpSmart (now Unruly Studios: programmable floor tiles teaching kids how to code) and PICCPerfect (now Mighty Well).
- Prize: Presenters are given live feedback from audience members immediately after their pitch.
- Who: Brandeis students, faculty, and staff compete for $50,000 in funding to seed their ventures.
- What: “SPARKTank is one of the only university startup competitions in the U.S. in which students, faculty, and staff compete as equals."
- Where: Brandeis International Business School.
- When: Call for applications takes place during the Fall semester of each year.
- Notable Winners: Grand Prize winner in 2018 is A.I. Capital Management, which took away $10,000 for their artificial intelligence fintech company.
- Prize: Each year, up to $50,000 is divided among the most promising projects.
- Who: The New Venture Competition is an annual student competition sponsored by Harvard Business School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise Initiative.
- What: The competition is composed of three main tracks: the Business Track (for "ventures with economic returns that drive substantial market value"), the Social Enterprise Track (for "ventures that drive social change using nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid models") and Alumni Track.
- Where: Harvard Business School
- When: The NVC Finale is in April.
- Notable Winners: In 2018, the winner of the $25,000 runner-up prize in the student business track was Alpha Vantage, the only HBS-born startup in 2018’s Y Combinator summer program.
- Prize: In 2018, the winners of HBSl’s New Venture Competition won a combined $315,000.
Boston University's New Venture Competition
- Who: "The annual New Venture Competition is a multi-round pitch competition that gives early-stage startups a chance to win up to $18,000."
- What: The NVC runs two parallel tracks: Tech ideas (for businesses "whose primary motive is profits includes for-profit products/services, media, fintech, medtech, etc.") and Social impact ideas (for businesses "whose primary motive is social impact and includes not for profits."). The NVC consists of three rounds: Pitch & Pizza (Round 1), Semi-finals (Round 2) and Finals (Round 3).
- Where: Boston University.
- When: The competition begins in the fall semester and concludes with the final winners in the spring semester.
- Notable Winners: In 2018, Verto - also known as "the eBay for college students" - moved to the semi-finals.
- Prize: Up to $18,000.
- Who: Not technically a pitch competition, but this recurrent series of startup events includes time for pitching products in front of a live audience.
- What: "Every month ten companies bring new products to the event and the social media community turns out to blog, tweet, post pictures and video, add product mentions to LinkedIn and Facebook statuses, and otherwise help spread the word."
- Where: Location is different from month to month - Greater Boston area.
- When: Once a month (usually the second Wednesday of the month).
- Prize: N/A.
Rhode Island Business Competition
- Who: Established in 2000, the Rhode Island Business Competition offers three tracks for interested applicants: the Entrepreneur Track (18+ entrepreneurs who aren’t students); the Student Track (for full-time college students); and the MedTech/Life Sciences Award (selected from all applicants).
- What: “The Rhode Island Business Competition aims to create and foster growth companies in Rhode Island that will increase local employment. It's all about helping emerging entrepreneurs achieve their dreams."
- Where: All finalists in the 2019 Competition will present at an Awards Ceremony in Providence in May 2019 (exact date to be determined), after which the winners will be announced.
- When: Once a year, typically in the spring.
- Prize: In 2018, $259,300 in prizes were shared amongst three winners and three finalists.
