AUT - Venture Fund details
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Venture Fund details
What is the AUT Venture Fund?
The AUT Venture Fund offers AUT students the chance to develop entrepreneurial ideas and business ventures. Ventures can be product, service or technology focussed, with a domestic and/or international orientation, but must be New Zealand based. Awards include start-up funding, mentoring, professional development opportunities, and other discretionary rewards.
The Venture Fund has been enabled by donations to the AUT Business School and through the support of the AUT Business School's Industry Advisory Board, the AUT Business Innovation Centre, AUT Enterprises, AuSM, and other members of the AUT community.
Who can apply?
- Current AUT students, as individuals or in a team.
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- Individual applicants must be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents.
- For team applications, at least two of the directors must be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents. In a team of two, the director must be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident.
What can I get?
- An award of $5,000 for the "Best Big Idea".
- Funding to invest in your business idea, over an agreed timeframe, based on attaining agreed milestones.
- Access to potential mentors.
- For an investment of $10,000 or more, a maximum of one year's free (consumables not included) incubation at the AUT Business Innovation Centre at the AUT Manukau Campus. Incubation will include:
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- mentoring from staff and/or external parties
- advice on network and partnership building
- advice on managing cash flow, foreseeing financial requirements and raising capital
- guidance on market opportunity and product/service development
- help with building a skilled, and complementary management team.
- Professional development opportunities.
- The overall winner is put forward to the regional round of the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA), in the year following their entry to the AUT Venture Fund. The winner of the regional GSEA competes in the global competition, sponsored by the Entrepreneurs Organisation. The regional winner also attends the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards, as a guest of Ernst and Young.
- Other discretionary rewards.
How does it work?
There are several steps that will be followed annually to identify the recipients of the AUT Venture Fund for that year.
- Launch: Details of the process, criteria and outcomes are communicated at the start of each year. An information session provides students with guidance on completing their Initial Submission.
- Initial Submission: Students submit their idea and answer two key questions. The top 10 submissions are selected to continue in the process and are given advice on business plan development.
- Development: Business plans are developed with support from volunteering AUT academic staff, and students are also encouraged seek guidance from business people and entrepreneurs. An information session on preparing a business plan will be run by an AUT academic.
- Business Plan Submission and Selection of Finalists: Business plans are submitted and four to six finalists are selected to present their plan to a judging panel.
- Final Judging: Each team or individual presents their business plan for 10 minutes, followed by questions from the judges for up to a further 10 minutes. An awards event follows the judging and applicants' family and friends are invited to attend.
- Due Diligence: Where appropriate, successful applicants will undergo a due diligence process before final confirmation of their award.
Judging
The judging panel consists of an AUT Business School representative, an AUT Business Innovation Centre representative and appropriate external judges.The key judging criteria are the extent to which the new venture is viable, sustainable and profitable. This will be assessed based 50% on the Business Plan and 50% on the presentation and the question and answer session. Please note that the word limits will be strictly adhered to.
Business Plan – 50% weighting
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Basic Idea (600 word limit)Is the business idea clearly described?
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Opportunity and Market (600 word limit) Has the market and economic opportunity been adequately described? Has the value proposition been clearly stated? Is it a sustainable model?
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Competitive Strategy (600 word limit) Has the competitive space been analysed? Does the summary clearly identify the company’s initial competitive advantage or differentiator? Is there an adequate strategy for maintaining the business’ competitive advantage or point of difference?
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Capabilities and Resources (600 word limit) Have the skills and capabilities necessary to execute the plan, and the provision of these, been adequately considered?
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Making a Start – Financial Planning (600 word limit) Is it clear how the company will reach its initial customer? Have start-up costs been identified? Are financial statements provided and has financial planning been discussed?
Presentation/Q&A – 50% weighting
- Assessment is holistic and based on the ability of the team members to identify a viable, sustainable and profitable new venture.
Confidentiality and Intellectual Property
Participants retain all proprietary rights to the business plans. Copies of the business plans will be circulated only for judging purposes. Any requests for the business plans will be directed back to the participants. Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges to sign non-disclosure statements for any participant. It is suggested that highly sensitive material be excluded from the entered business plan if an entrant is concerned about confidentiality of such material.
Audio and visual recordings may be made of the presentations at the AUT Venture Fund finals. Participation in the fund demonstrates students' agreement to allow AUT to videotape the oral presentations, the question and answer period, and feedback sessions. Final presentations, question and answer periods, and feedback sessions may be posted on the Internet as publicity for the AUT Venture Fund.
The media may be invited to the Final and any media requests for information about business plans will be directed back to teams.
AUT cannot take further responsibility to protect intellectual property, such protection is ultimately the responsibility of the participants.
Disqualification
No Business Plan will be allowed to compete more than once in the AUT Venture Fund Competition. The Judging panel reserves the right to disqualify any entry that, in its judgement, violates the letter or the spirit of the competition rules and guidelines.