Summer 2004

Lester Center Inaugurates Berkeley VCIC™ Program

By Enlai Chu (MBA 04)

The UC Berkeley Venture Capital Investment Competition was inaugurated January 23 at the Haas School. The highly intense and competitive one-day event saw over thirty MBA students vying to be part of the team that would represent Berkeley at the Regional VCIC™ in Boulder, Colorado. Sponsored by the Lester Center, the Berkeley VCIC complements the annual Berkeley Business Plan Competition by putting students on “the other side of the table”. Participants were given the opportunity to act as venture capitalists for a day by evaluating and selecting from four real life, early stage companies and then structuring an investment in the firm they selected. The process was highly true-to-life, complete with pitches, Q&A sessions and a term-sheet deliverable at the end. Throughout the process teams were observed by six Silicon Valley venture capitalists.

This year’s winner, Verde Ventures, was composed of first and second year students Jason Anderson 04, Christian Bennett 04, Josh Elman 05, Ameet Ranadive 05, Irv Remedios 05 and Matt Weathers 04. Verde Ventures was one of ten teams of MBA students from both the full-time and evening/weekend programs who applied to participate. “The VCIC was truly a unique opportunity for us students to experience what only the handful of career VCs get to practice on a daily basis,” commented Ranadive after the competition. Ranadive's sentiments were echoed by participants on their feedback forms. Of the ten, six teams were selected to participate in the actual competition. Teams were chosen based on their members' prior venture capital-related experience and coursework

As founders and co-chairs, I and David Geisler were pleased with the participants’ performances. Many of the MBAs had no prior VC experience, yet exhibited thoughtfully probing questioning during Q&A sessions with the entrepreneurs. The students showed a good grasp of the venture capital process throughout the competition. Judges had a difficult time selecting the winning team, with deliberation taking twice as long as expected. VC judges this year were from top firms in Silicon Valley: David Britts from Comventures, Rick Bolander from Gabriel Venture Partners, Paul Hsu from Neocarta, Steve Kishi from Hummer Winblad, Ned Scheetz from Piper Jaffray Ventures and Russell Siegelman from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. After the competition Terry Opdendyk from Onset Ventures provided the winning team with an invaluable personal mentoring session about the venture capital process and his personal investment framework.

The Haas VCIC brings together real entrepreneurs seeking capital, MBAs interested in VC and venture capitalists from the Bay Area's leading investment firms in a series of unique synergies not often found in student-initiated events. While the competition is primarily geared towards educating students and raising exposure to venture capital at Haas, it also allows companies to get valuable pitching experience and feedback from MBAs and top-tier VCs. At the same time, venture capitalists from various firms ‘collaborate’ to share thoughts on picking deals while donating their experiences to increase the sophistication of the next generation of entrepreneurs and VCs. VCs are also given the opportunity to enter their portfolio companies in the event.

Participating companies this year were Cima Systems, Iris AO, USOI and PeerSites. All companies received constructive feedback by the VC judges during private sessions following their presentations. The chair of the National VCIC, Patrick Vernon, and Aaron Mendelson (MBA 02, VCIC Finalist and co-organizer of the Berkeley VCIC) were also in attendance to support the Haas event.

As this year’s winner, Verde Ventures also represented UC Berkeley at the Regional VCIC semi-finals held in Boulder, CO from February 5- 7 2004. Anderson, Ranadive, Remedios and Weathers, were joined by Todd Gracon, Evening MBA '05 from second place team Crimson Ventures, replaced Josh Elman and Christian Bennett who were unable to attend. While the Haas team did not qualify to make it to the Nationals this year, it performed extremely well, being the only team to pick the “right deal” as selected by the VC judges in Boulder. The team plans to use its experience at the competition to mentor next year's Berkeley VCIC participants.

The National VCIC was founded in 1998 and Haas teams have been competing since 2001. The annual Regional and National VCIC events run over a two-and-a-half day period and attract over thirty top business schools across the country. I and David Geisler were part of last year’s team. After returning from the Regional VCIC, we decided to organize the Berkeley VCIC because we wanted to share the learning experience from Colorado with as many Haas students as possible. We also wanted to create an annual event that would further strengthen the ties between the business school and the venture capital community.

To participate in next year’s Berkeley VCIC as a participant or volunteer, please send an e-mail to Tamara Williamson at tamaraw@haas.berkeley.edu at the Lester Center.

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