Nine startups to present business plans at inaugural Pitch Day at Rice University

MEDIA ADVISORY

Amy Hodges
713-348-6777
amy.hodges@rice.edu

Nine startups to present business plans at inaugural Pitch Day at Rice University

HOUSTON – (Aug. 13, 2013) – Nine companies founded mostly by Rice University undergraduates will present their business plans to an audience of potential investors, venture capitalists, angel investors and business leaders from Houston at OwlSpark Pitch Day Aug. 15. Six are for-profit companies and three are dedicated to social ventures.

OwlSpark is a student-founded, student-run startup accelerator program. The 90-day program, housed in Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative, offers startup resources and education, including expert presentations and industry and entrepreneurial mentorship to develop their business plans. Pitch Day is the culminating event for OwlSpark, but many companies will continue working with OwlSpark to grow their companies.

Who:               OwlSpark’s nine inaugural startup companies.

What:             OwlSpark Pitch Day.

When:            Thursday, Aug. 15. The company showcase will be held from 5 to 6 p.m.; company presentations will be held from 6 to 9:30 p.m.

Where:           Duncan Hall, Rice University, 6100 Main St.

For more information on OwlSpark and its companies visit http://owlspark.com/.

The event is open to the Rice community and members of the media. To RSVP, contact Amy Hodges, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777 or amy.hodges@rice.edu.

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A campus map is available at http://www.rice.edu/maps/maps.html.

This news release can be found online at news-network.rice.edu/news.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.

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