Babson College welcomes you to the
2020 B.E.T.A. Challenge
Presented by the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship
THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2020
#BABSONBETA babson.edu/betachallenge
Taking action is vital to success in business and is integral to Babson’s approach to entrepreneurship. So, the Blank Center for Entrepreneurship reinvented the traditional business plan competition, which has a long and honored history at Babson, and introduced the B.E.T.A. Challenge—the Babson Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® Challenge—which recognizes and rewards entrepreneurs for taking action and for achieving major milestones, as well as for the potential success of their startup. Today, the B.E.T.A. Challenge is the premier university-based startup competition, open to Babson undergraduate and graduate students and alumni. The B.E.T.A. Challenge showcases the best early-stage companies in the Babson ecosystem and they compete for cash and prizes. Winners of the Undergraduate, Graduate, and Alumni B.E.T.A. Challenge each receive a grand prize of $20,000 in cash, plus donations of services from sponsors and in-kind prizes. Finalists in each category receive $2,500 in cash and sponsor services. This year, we are excited to also offer the High Impact Female Founder Award and the Pivot for Impact Award. We extend special thanks to all of our sponsors for their support. We appreciate the ongoing partnership of the Babson Alumni Association, which not only generously sponsors the grand prize for the Alumni Challenge and builds awareness of the competition in the alumni community, but also mobilizes alumni to act as volunteer evaluators for B.E.T.A. Challenge applications every year.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 5 p.m.
Opening Remarks
President Stephen Spinelli Jr. MBA’92, PhD Babson College
5:05 p.m. Welcome
Debi Kleiman Executive Director The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship
5:15 p.m. Undergraduate Challenge
Pitches Meet the finalists Winner announcement
6 p.m.
Graduate Challenge
Pitches Meet the finalists Winner announcement
6:45 p.m. Alumni Challenge
Pitches Meet the finalists Winner announcement
7:35 p.m. Special Award Announcement
High Impact Female Founder Award Pivot for Impact Award sponsored by David Ragins ’94
UNDERGRADUATE CHALLENGE 2020 Judges Andrew Butler ’84, Executive Chairman, Cottingham & Butler, Inc. Matt Coffin ’90, Investor, Coffin Capital & Ventures Nicole Stata, General Partner, Boston Seed Capital
2020 Finalists Arist: Michael Ioffe ’21, Ryan Laverty ’20, Maxine Anderson ’22, and Joseph Passanante Arist (arist.co) is the first text message learning platform, helping leading organizations create, deploy, and assess text message courses, drastically improving learning and training. @learnarist /
@textarist /
@aristu
Goba Tea: Noah Doris ’20 and Byron D’Mello Goba Tea (gobatea.com) is the first healthy and shelf-stable boba, created to address the negligible shelf-life and extremely high calories that define the current boba tea market, uncapping previously repressed demand. @gobatea / @goba-tea TicketRev: Jason Shatsky ’21 and Andrew Duca TicketRev (ticketrev.com) is a reverse marketplace for event tickets. @ticketrev
GRADUATE CHALLENGE 2020 Judges John Burns MBA’05, CEO, TB12 Kara Chmielewski MBA’95, Managing Director, Golden Seeds Jessica Murphy MBA’06, Co-founder, True Fit
2020 Finalists BONAMI FOOD PRODUCTS: Félix Guelfucci MS’20 and Antonio A. Morente BONAMI FOOD PRODUCTS (bonamifoodproducts.com) produces and sells delightful seafood products and uses part of its profit to empower people from underprivileged communities, fostering business creation and economic opportunities. @bonamifoodproducts Busy Boda: Vaidehi Tembhekar MBA’21 and Atharva Tembhekar Busy Boda (busyboda.co.ke) is a motorcycle taxi hailing application in Nairobi that satisfies your courier and commuter needs. We aim to help motorcycle riders below the poverty line become micro-entrepreneurs. @busyboda /
@busy_boda
Hoamsy: Richard O’Brien MBA’20, Neritti Lakshman MBA’20, Jules Bibonimana, Walter Villa Olin College of Engineering ’23, and Kaylin Goncalves MS’20 Hoamsy (hoamsy.com) is a digital platform designed to provide guidance and facilitation through every step of the apartment rental process to students and young professionals moving to a new city. @hoamsyhq /
@hoamsy
ALUMNI CHALLENGE 2020 Judges Zann Ali ’12, Senior Associate, 2048 Ventures Terri Monjar ’96, Commercial Banking, Senior Relationship Manager, Bank of America Merrill Lynch Polina Raygorodskaya ’08, CEO and Co-founder, Wanderu
2020 Finalists 1Room: Jeremy Bhatia ’11, Michael Beeler, and Saket Adhikarla 1Room (1roomlearning.com) delivers a country’s national high school curriculum through tablets in one room with one teacher. Dash Beyond Interactive Media Private Limited: Aakaanksh Pothukutchi ’13, Akhil Chowdary, Mischa Pouyavand, Nikhil Srivatsa, Tanisha Kulkarni, Justin Urena, Kunal Bhosale, Ewan Kromhout, and Sabita Pothukutchi Dash Beyond (dashbeyond.com) is an interactive career encyclopedia game that motivates students to explore at least 50 careers, 30 courses, and 15 colleges before they finish the 11th grade and apply to college. TakkaCor Technologies: Jeremy Singh MBA’18 and Milan Raj TakkaCor (takkacor.com) empowers people to achieve sustainability by giving anyone a green thumb; we’re taking the smart home outdoors. @takkacor
THE ARTHUR M. BLANK CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship accelerates the practice of entrepreneurship by providing Babson’s emerging entrepreneurs with access to events, workshops, resources, mentoring and competitions that enable them to test and refine their founder skills. The Butler Launch Pad is the hub of this entrepreneurial ecosystem, connecting our students and alumni with the broader business and entrepreneurial community through a series of programs and learning experiences that support our entrepreneurs along their journey. Included in these programs are two of Babson’s Signature Events: Rocket Pitch and B.E.T.A. Challenge, as well as the highly regarded Summer Venture Program that accelerates the top 15 student ventures at Babson each year.
THANK YOU TO OUR B.E.T.A. CHALLENGE SPONSORS GOLD SPONSOR
The Babson Alumni Association (BAA) works to ensure that there are opportunities for all alumni to feel connected to Babson. The BAA is committed to supporting the mission of the College by enhancing the incredible network of 41,000 alumni around the world. With each graduating class, the network becomes brighter, more diverse, and increasingly successful, thus providing a truly valuable resource to each other.
SILVER SPONSOR ACE & Company (ACE) (www.aceandcompany.com), founded in 2005, is a global investment management group specialized in direct investments. ACE is uniquely positioned to understand the needs and challenges facing private investors today and to provide unparalleled access to quality opportunities across the direct investment ecosystem. By combining in-house team capabilities with specialized partners, ACE is able to source, perform due diligence, and execute on superior investment opportunities across five continents. The flexible investment platform offers diverse portfolios across the stages of the investment life cycle from early, growth, to mature. The ACE team prides itself in actively partnering with stakeholders to meet specific investment criteria and objectives and aims to actively improve investment returns by adding strategic value to both its portfolio companies as well as sourcing partners by leveraging its broad investment knowledge. ACE is regulated by the Swiss Financial Supervisory Authority (FINMA) in Switzerland.
GENEROUS GIFTS FROM Matthew Chatham MBA’11 John Esler MBA’97 David Ragins ’94
IN-KIND SPONSORS
PAST B.E.T.A. CHALLENGE WINNERS 2019 PerkZilla: James Cantoni ’17, Jeremy Gislason, and Simon Hodgkinson Alumni Challenge Taylor Custom Rings: Ashley Taylor MBA’20 and Jerry Taylor Graduate Challenge Yad: Deborah Cohen ’19 Undergraduate Challenge
2018 Clarke’s Organics: Daniel Dalet ’03 Alumni Challenge Magnomer: Ravish Majithia MBA’18 Graduate Challenge cleancult: Ryan Lupberger ’18 and Zachary Bedrosian ’18 Undergraduate Challenge
2017 botkeeper: Enrico Palmerino ’11 Alumni Challenge TORq Interface: Joanna Geisinger MBA’17 and Prashant Mohan MBA’17 Graduate Challenge DetraPel: David Zamarin ’20, Jacob Heller ’20, and Larry Ng ’20 Undergraduate Challenge
2016 Green Piñata Toy Share: Shiva Kashalkar MBA’11 and Kiran Kashalkar MBA’15 Alumni Challenge Play Business: Joan C. Segura Oyamburu MBA’17 and Fernanda de Velasco Graduate Challenge Mighty Well (formerly PICCPerfect): Emily A. Levy ’16, Maria del Mar Gomez ’16, Julianne Carlin ’17, and Yousef Al-Humaidhi ’15 Undergraduate Challenge
2015 WrightGrid: Ryan Wright MBA’13 Alumni Challenge DARTdrones: Abby Speicher Carroll MBA’15 Graduate Challenge Think Board: Hanson Grant ’16 Undergraduate Challenge
2014
Vedavoo: Scott Hunter MBA’09 Alumni Challenge HigherMe: Rob Hunter MBA’14 and Evan Lodge MBA’14 Graduate Challenge Lilypad Scales: Amos Meeks, F.W. Olin College of Engineering ’14 and Molly Farison, F.W. Olin College of Engineering ’13 Undergraduate Challenge
2013 MandaSeguro.com: Matias Sevi ’12, Alexis Garberis, Lucia Moroni, and Ariel Sevi Alumni Challenge 88 acres: Robert Dalton MBA’14 and Nicole Ledoux Graduate Challenge OrangeOctop.us: Joseph Roth ’14 Undergraduate Challenge
2012 Reconcraft: Jay Hoflich MBA’12 Graduate Challenge Off the Cob (formerly Sweet! Corn Tortilla Chips Inc.): Cameron Sheldrake ’12 Undergraduate Challenge
WANT TO MAKE AN IMPACT? Learn how you can support the new ventures and initiatives at the Blank Center by contacting us at blankcenter@babson.edu
GET CONNECTED WITH THE BLANK CENTER: twitter.com/BabsonEship facebook.com/babsonentrepreneurs instagram.com/babsoneship
babson.edu/betachallenge
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