General Judging Comments

Most of the judges of the InNOLEvation Challenge come from the investment community and are involved in making early-stage investment decisions on an ongoing basis.  Their ranking of the top teams is guided by the scorecard (described below), but should be consistent with the approach that would be used by a venture capital or early-stage investor.

We recognize that consistent with real life investment situations, early-stage companies can be in very different stages of development.  To compensate for this, we would expect that an early stage investor would require the potential for higher investment returns for an earlier stage company which has a higher level of risk involved.  We assume, in general, that this would be true for the judges in the InNOLEvation Challenge.

Teams are not required to reveal the exact desired terms of the deal (i.e., their proposed company valuation and percentage of company being offered to investors).  However, some investors prefer to have this information upfront, (while some investors feel that it is not as important until later).  We recommend that teams be prepared to address questions about their terms, but it is up to the team to decide how they want to answer these questions.

Unlike many venture capital funds, judges in this competition should not restrict themselves to investing in only certain types of new business ventures (such as biotechnology or information technology).  Judges in this competition should assume that they would be open to investing in any type of new business venture, assuming that other criteria such as those mentioned above, are met.

There are two main rounds of competition: the First Round on Friday morning April 13 the Final/Shark Tank Round on Friday afternoon, April 13.  All teams must be in present in the Turnbull Center on April 13 to present their plan to the judges.

During the competition, judges are asked to evaluate each team individually and should not discuss their evaluation with other judges until all judges’ evaluation forms have been submitted.

Scoring

Criteria

The winners of the competition will be determined by the judges’ ranking of the teams.  This ranking will be based on the judges’ willingness to invest in the company as noted above.  The ranking will be completed by the judges at the end of each round.  Judges will rank the teams from 1 (team most likely to receive funding) to 6 (team least likely to receive funding).

To assist the judges in this decision process and to provide additional feedback to the teams, the judges will fill out 2 scorecards for each team in the First Round.
The 2 scorecards will cover:
Part I  Written Business Plan
Part II Verbal Presentation & Business Viability

The individual scorecards are designed to provide guidance for judges in evaluating the individual components of each team in order to develop their overall rankings.  Scorecards are also designed to provide feedback to the competitors, and will be given to competitors at the end of the competition

Process

In the First Round, teams in the competition will be divided into flights.  The flights will consist of teams, “clustered” by industry sector, to the extent possible.  Judges will be assigned to flights based on their background and areas of expertise.  Each judge will assess the written business plans, oral presentations, and business viability of the teams in their flight in the First Round of competition. Annoucement of the finalist will be made on Friday at 12:00pm.

Please note: The scorecards will not be used in the calculation of the winning teams.  The winning teams will be determined by the judges’ rankings.  However, they will be used to provide feedback to the teams.  Therefore judges should fill out the scorecards for each round.  These scorecards will be provided to the teams to help them improve their business plan presentation.

Written Business Plan Evaluation

The final written business plans must be submitted by Friday, March 30, 2012 for evaluation.

Judges will review the written business plans of each of the teams in their flight and complete Part I of the InNOLEvation Challenge Scorecard online for each plan.  Part I is designed to help assess the written business plan, focusing on key elements and the effectiveness of the summary financial data.  (Judges will evaluate the written business plan in advance of the competition and complete Part I of the scorecard online by April 2nd at Noon EDT.)  We will make every effort to provide the feedback to teams before Friday, April 13, 2012.

First Round Oral Presentations

Each judge will listen to and evaluate the oral presentations of the teams in their flight on Friday, April 13.  Judges will use Parts II of the InNOLEvation Challenge Scorecard as a guide to determine their rankings.

• Part II assesses the poise and professionalism of the presentation & viability of the venture

The quantitative assessment provided by the Scorecards is only meant to serve as a guide to the judges for ranking the teams in the First Round.  The rankings will determine the overall winners based on where judges would invest their money.

The winning teams from each of the flights will be determined by the judges ranking of the teams within each flight.  This ranking will be determined Friday afternoon after all of the teams have presented to the judges.  The judges will rank the teams within their flight from 1 (highest) to 8 (lowest).  The scores from all judges within a flight will be aggregated and the teams with the lowest total scores in that flight will advance to the Final Round on Friday afternoon.  In the unlikely event that there should be a tie after the initial tabulation of rankings, the team with the most number of first place scores will be declared the winner.

Final Round: Friday afternoon, April 13

The winning teams in the final round will be determined solely by the judges’ ranking of the teams.  This ranking will be determined Friday afternoon after all of the teams have presented to the judges.  The judges will rank the teams in the finals from 1 (highest) to 8 (lowest).

The rankings from each of the judges will be aggregated and the teams with the lowest total scores will be the winners.  As in the previous rounds, in the case of a tie, the team with the most number of first place scores will be declared the winner.