Epidemic-Focused Students Rule Berkeley's B-Plan Competition

Business plan competitions are quickly becoming marquee events at universities as they help discover, fund and bring compelling technologies to market. UC Berkeley's 11th annual competition at the Haas School of Business has helped launch companies who've raised a cumulative $165 million in venture capital. While many have been acquired for several million, some have much larger exits, such as Timber Technologies that sold for $138 million to Tokyo Electron Limited. They placed second in 1999. Here's a look a look at the the top three companies that placed this year.

AutoTB, the winner of this year's Berkeley Business Plan Competition, aims to tackle an epidemic that affects one third of the world's population infected with tuberculosis. The start-up that originated from Cambridge University in England won an additional $25,000 for their device that is designed to improve diagnostics by automating sputum microscopy. The goal is to decrease analysis time, increase sensitivity and reduce human error present in current procedures. Not only is it a worthy cause, but they have the potential to capture a significant portion of the $1 billion dollar market for tuberculosis diagnosis.

Business plan competitions like the one at Berkeley not only attract some of today's top MBA and PhD students, but also draw venture capitalists from highly esteemed firms, such as O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and BlueRun Ventures that served as the competition's final round judges. This year, the competition attracted 100 executive summary applications and 40 venture capitalists who donated their time to judge the event.

Prize money totaled $45,000 and uncovered two other healthcare start-ups.

Novophage took second place for their "advanced biological solution to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in a clinical setting." When used in conjunction with antibiotic therapy, the Boston-area MBA students' solution was able to increase the survival rate of mice with septic infection from 20-80%. They're calling their solution the "next generation of antimicrobials."

The Berkeley Business Plan Competition isn't Novaphage's first contest. The MIT, Harvard and Boston University-born company recently placed second at the University of Nebraska's business plan competition (March 29, 2009), were among three finalists at Boston University's competition (April 7, 2009) and grabbed first place at the University of South Florida International Business Plan Competition (March 5, 2009) and the top prize at the 26th annual Global Moot Corp Competition at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin (May 9, 2009).

The Moot Corp Competition prides itself as the largest and oldest new venture competition in the world and is often referred to as the "Super Bowl of world business plan competitions." Novophage's prize at Moot Corp totaled $135,000 including $25,000 cash and an Austin Technology Incubator Launch Package worth $25,000.

While AutoTB is tackling tuberculosis and Novaphage fights infections, Berkley-based Integrated Diagnostics is taking on another global epidemic, HIV, which 33 million people lived with in 2007.

Integrated Diagnostics took third place for $5,000 at Berkeley with an additional $5,000 for the People's Choice Award for "developing a novel, easy-to-use, patent-pending, point-of-care device for early stage, accurate HIV detection." Like AutoTB and Novaphage, they aim to increase accuracy, while decreasing the cost of expensive laboratory costs.

Ready to compete?

For good advice on writing an effective business plan, Sequoia Capital has a business plan outline that addresses key points you want to consider.

Related links:

• Berkeley Business Plan Competition
• AutoTB
• Novophage
• Austin Technology Incubator Launch Package