In honor of the Rice Business Plan Competition’s (RBPC) 25th year, Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business and the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship announced today that Rice Business will be the presenting sponsor at this year’s event.
The world’s largest and richest intercollegiate student startup competition, the RBPC is hosted and organized every spring by the Rice Alliance. Each year, the RBPC brings together the best student ventures from top universities across the world to compete for more than $1 million in prizes in front of more than 350 venture capital, angel and corporate investors as well as members of the Houston business community.
“Supporting the RBPC reflects our deep commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation,” said Dean Peter Rodriguez. “Houston is a pro-business hub and a hotbed for breakthroughs in energy, health care and technology. As Rice Business celebrates 25 years of the RBPC, we are proud to strengthen our role in shaping future leaders who will drive progress in these vital industries.”
The RBPC has played an important role in the business school’s reputation for entrepreneurship. Rice Business has earned the No. 1 spot for graduate entrepreneurship programs by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review for six years in a row and sits at No. 8 on the U.S. News & World Report list of top MBA schools for entrepreneurship. The university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem features a collaborative culture, a willing network of mentors, paths to funding and multiple competitions. The ecosystem also combines academic courses and cocurricular programs led by the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and regional, national and cocurricular programs led by the Rice Alliance.
“The RBPC offers real-world opportunities to learn what’s required to successfully launch a new business,” said Brad Burke, associate vice president for industry and new ventures at Rice’s Office of Innovation and executive director of Rice Alliance. “But to me, the greatest part of the RBPC is the mentoring students receive from the experienced investors and entrepreneurs at the competition. It’s remarkable to see the success of these ventures after the RBPC; RBPC alumni have raised more than $6.1 billion in funding. Many founders feel their success was greatly accelerated by the mentors and investors they met at Rice.”
Rice Business, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, has one of the leading MBA programs in the country with an entrepreneurship specialization, and the school has multiple programs and accelerators that provide guidance and support needed to launch and grow businesses.
Since its inception, the RBPC has grown from nine teams competing for $10,000 in prize money in 2001 to 42 teams from around the world competing for more $1 million in cash, investment and in-kind prizes. Over two decades, 826 teams have raised more than $6.1 billion in capital with 59 successful exits.