Twenty-Four More Business Plan Competitions

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Contest: Bain & Company Start-Up Challenge
Winner: Leasing Point [from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business]
Team: Phil Pfirrmann, Andrea Roberts, Jeff Scolnick
Contact: jeff@leasingpoint.com
Prize: $50,000 and support from Bain's in-house incubator.
Funding: Seeking initial financing.
Description: The management consulting firm invited teams from seven top B-schools to compete in its first national business plan competition. The winner, Leasing Point, aims to be a leading online exchange for the leasing and financing of business equipment. The team, which includes a University of Chicago MBA and several equipment-leasing industry veterans, is targeting companies that lease manufacturing and transportation equipment costing more than $1 million, such as printing presses, airplanes and rail cars. The company already has a CEO, CTO and an advisory board, and it is currently building a Web site and negotiating with investors for its first round of financing.

Contest: Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University -- EnterPrize
Winner: SmartOps [from Carnegie Mellon]
Team: Michael Abowd, Vivek Khemka, Ian Lomax, Faustino Santana, Sridhar Tayur, Marty Wagner
Contact: stayur@cyrus.andrew.cmu.edu
Prize: $60,000
Funding: Closed $1 million in angel funding.
Description: Application service providers were big in this year's business plan contests. SmartOps is an ASP that is developing tactical planning software for managing multistage supply chains. Translated, that means it intends to help corporations orchestrate the complicated task of getting raw materials from suppliers at the correct time and delivering finished goods to customers when and where they're needed. Led by Sridhar Tayur, an operations and manufacturing professor at Carnegie Mellon's Graduate School of Industrial Administration, the team is in the final stages of developing its software, has three customers, is hiring executives and is talking to venture capital firms about additional funding.

Contest: Columbia University Graduate School of Business, Outrageous Business Plan Competition
Winner: Newlines Airways
Team: Julian Cook
Contact: jc@newlines.com
Prize: $5,000
Funding: Raised $1.8 million in seed money and is looking to raise another $35 million to $40 million this summer.
Description: Newlines is a London-based airline that expects to take off in January 2001 and will offer premium- and business-class flights between London and New York. Planes will be equipped with the latest Internet and electronic gadgets "in order to enable the business traveler to use his time efficiently while traveling," according to the company's business plan.

Contest: Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, Startup Challenge
Winner: OmnipreSense
Team: Vamsee Pamula, Michael Pollack, Vijay Srinivasen, Jeremy Usher
Contact: jeremyu@yahoo.com
Prize: $30,000
Funding: Currently refining business plan before seeking venture funding.
Description: OmnipreSense is building technology that melds microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with wireless technology to connect laptops, digital assistants and Internet-enabled cell phones with peripheral devices. MEMS are chips with both electronic and mechanical functions. This dual functionality allows these chips to "interact with the physical world in ways [that chips haven't before]," says cofounder Usher. The startup is still building product prototypes and is looking for an incubator or office space that will keep it close to MEMS manufacturers in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park.

Contest: Garage.com's PlanEdu
Winner: Quicksilver Genomics [from the University of California at San Francisco]
Team: Rey Banatao, Jose Haresco, Sean Mooney, Sandra Waugh
Contact: reyban@cgl.ucsf.edu
Prize: $150,000
Funding: Not available
Description: Biotech companies won at least four of this year's business plan competitions. The richest purse went to Quicksilver Genomics,