Wharton Business Plan Competition’s “Great 8” Finalists

wharton business plan competition

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has announced the “Great Eight” finalists who will compete for over $125,000 in prizes at the Wharton Business Plan Competition Venture Finals coming up on Thursday, April 28, 2016.

The Wharton Business Plan Competition “Great Eight” finalists are:

  • Barn Owl Systems For livestock ranchers who spend significant time and money monitoring resources over large areas, Barn Owl provides drone hardware and software for autonomous data gathering.
  • BioCellection Inc. BioCellection upcycles unrecyclable plastic waste into valuable compound rhamnolipid for textiles using genetically engineered bacteria. This invention has the potential to clean plastic pollution around the world, disrupt the textiles industry, and grow into a $100MM business in 5 years.
  • brEDcrumb brEDcrumb is the only college admission consulting platform that provides free, one-on-one, college mentoring online. The startup connects underserved high schoolers with undergraduates or recent graduates who have shared backgrounds.
  • Daylight OB, LLC Daylight OB, LLC is a medical device company developing technologies to improve health and safety in labor & delivery units. The firm’s first product, now in development, is a disposable obstetrics device, called Daylight, used to elevate a baby’s head to enable a safer, faster, and easier urgent cesarean section delivery.
  • Our Frontier Crowd Our Frontier Crowd is the premiere residential real estate platform dedicated to investment opportunities in Africa. The startup’s technology harnesses the insights of the crowd to connect African real estate developers and potential home buyers with foreign investors.
  • Qorum, Inc. Qorum is a mobile app providing discerning millennials a curated list of quality bars. After enjoying their final beverage, users hail a free ride home through the app.
  • QTEK The QTEK team offers Surfion, a durable, safe, and effective chemical additive that could make any surface antibacterial and antifungal. Surfion will not wash off or wear away; it will provide continuous self-decontamination protection over the lifetime of myriad products.
  • WeTrain WeTrain is a proud Veteran-owned, fitness-technology company building the “Uber of Personal Training.” Every day, 700,000 training sessions are conducted in the US. Using a specially designed application, members request trainers for affordable sessions ($17/half hour or $25/full hour) while trainers receive 30% more compensation than typical gyms.

The competition is open to any University of Pennsylvania student and is managed by Wharton Entrepreneurship. The eight finalist teams face off at the Venture Finals with 20-minute presentations to judges drawn from the business and venture capital community, who will then evaluate the persuasiveness and viability of each venture.

Venture Finals BPC judges are:

  • David Cohen (PAR’14/PAR’16/PAR’17), CEO, Chief Investment Officer and Co-founder, Karlin Asset Management, Inc.
  • Carol Curley (WG’81), Managing Director, Golden Seeds
  • Marc Lore (Wharton alum), Founder and CEO, Jet.com
  • Richard Perlman (W’68), Founder & Executive Chairman, ExamWorks Group, Inc.
  • Stephen Tang (WG’92), President and CEO, University City Science Center
  • Tracey Weber (WG’95), Strategic Advisor, Gilt and Hudson’s Bay Company

Previous participants in the Competition include ventures such as eyeglass phenom Warby Parker, dominant Brazilian baby e-commerce site Baby.com.br, and drug R&D company Integral Molecular.

Students will receive up to $128,500 in cash prizes and in-kind awards including the $30,000 Perlman Grand Prize, which is made possible by the generosity of Ellen Hanson Perlman and Richard E. Perlman (W’68). The event annually attracts over 200 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investment bankers, alumni, faculty and students.

image credit: Wharton School

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