Wharton MBA students Sandeep Naik and Samonnoi Banerjee, along with teammate Baruch Ben Dor, are positive that their company has the potential to become a successful business that will benefit medical research in years to come.
Their confidence was affirmed on Monday when Infrascan Inc. -- their company based on technology to quickly detect brain hematomas in patients with head trauma -- won first prize and a check for $20,000 at the annual Wharton Business Plan Competition Venture Fair.
The fair, which took place in Huntsman Hall, is the culmination of a yearlong competition.
Over 180 teams developed business plans from the ground up with the help of mentors and professors over the course of the year.
"It is extremely important and helpful to anyone choosing to pursue a startup idea," finalist Oded Loebl said, praising the process of the competition.
Loebl, who is currently looking for investors in his project, felt that both the competition and the fair provided invaluable opportunities for beginning businesses.
There were three rounds of the competition in which teams were eliminated, and the remaining eight teams presented their business plans at the fair.
The "Great Eight" were judged by a panel of distinguished judges, including representatives from Johnson & Johnson and Microsoft. After their presentations, each team was subject to questions by the judges.
"I liked the quality of the questions ... although if I was judging, I would probably be a little more critical of some presentations," said Wharton senior Ajay Bakshi, who was a member of the second-place project CelfCure Inc.
The event attracted over 200 venture capitalists, investment bankers, alumni, attorneys, faculty and students.
Most attendees were impressed by the competitors.
"It was fantastic -- the caliber of the plans that I saw were well beyond what I expected," said committee member and Wharton West representative Jayesh Sahasi.
Participants also looked positively on the competition as a whole.
"It was very well organized, very professional. ... It might be a platform to go to the next level," said Naik, the team leader of InfraScan.
The three winning teams received money to start up their businesses, and the grand-prize winnter was guaranteed support and benefits from the services of the Venture Initiation Program at the Wharton Small Business Development Center.
New this year to the competition is the offering of legal and accounting services. Each of the three winners will receive $5,000 worth of both legal and accounting services to be put toward setting up their business.
The competition began in 1998 and is open to all teams that have at least one Wharton student as a member.
This year showed an increase in the number of undergraduate teams participating.
The top undergraduate team, Distributed Resource Imagery, won the Frederick H. Glockner Award in Entrepreneurial Studies, as well as a check for $5,000.
