Isenberg Students Shine in Elevator Pitch Competition

December 4, 2013

Three Isenberg students were on winning teams in the UMass Innovation Challenge Executive Summary and Elevator Pitch Competition on December 3rd. In the competition, which asks interdisciplinary stude

Three Isenberg students were on winning teams in the UMass Innovation Challenge Executive Summary and Elevator Pitch Competition on December 3rd. In the competition, which asks interdisciplinary student teams to concisely "pitch" their preliminary business plans to a panel of business-practitioner judges, eight winning teams vied for $10,000 in seed money.

Isenberg MBA candidate Dave Weymouth and his team, Rescue Collar, were among four $1,500 first place winners. The business has developed a GPS-enabled pet collar.  Isenberg finance major Nate Tepper and his team, Leaf, were also first place winners. Leaf plans to market a bracelet that allows for information exchange via a handshake. A third Isenberg student, Michael Mullen, and his team, KloudBook, were among four $1,000 second place winners and received the audience favorite award of $250. KloudBook has developed a social network devoted solely to contact information.

All Innovation Challenge prizes are privately funded. The competing teams also receive valuable feedback from the judges and a mentor to further development of their business plans and move their products and services closer to market.

The Elevator Pitch competition is one of several Innovative Challenge events culminating in a Final Business Plan Competition, with five finalist teams competing for as much as $50,000. This year's culminating event will take place on April 15th.

In addition to the Isenberg School of Management, the UMass co-sponsors of the Innovation Challenge are the College of Engineering; the College of Natural Sciences; and the UMass Innovation Institute.

The Innovation Challenge prize sponsors include Wolf Greenfield; Saint Gobain; Glass Family Endowment for Entrepreneurial Studies; Steve Luby '84 '86 MS; William Firestone '78; Cantor Colburn LLP; CISCO; Raytheon; Saul Ewing; an anonymous faculty donor; Stephen Dunne '89; Eric '04 and Candy Janszen; Provenance Venture Partners; and Karen Lauter Utgoff Consulting. Visionary support from Eugene M. and Ronnie Isenberg is gratefully acknowledged.