H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge 

Final Competition

Please join us for the H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge Startup Competition. Rice affiliated teams – students and recent alumni - are competing for $60,000 and other prizes.

The guest emcee for the evening will be John Reale, CEO of Station Houston. He will be joined by a judging panel with the likes of:

• Diana Murakhovskaya, Co-founder, Monarq Incubator

• Billy Cohn, Executive Director, Johnson & Johnson Center for Device Innovation
  

• Courtney Hall, Partner, Hillcrest Venture Partner

• Rassul Zarinfar, Founder, Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co.

• Carolyn Rodz, Founder, Alice Network

Buffalo Bayou will be providing refreshments and we will be sharing giveaways. This event is open to the Houston community. See you there! You can find more information at http://bit.ly/NRLC2018

Brought to you by:

• Rice Business
• Liu Idea Lab for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (Lilie)
• Rice Entrepreneurs Organization

Special thanks to our sponsors:

• Alex Kazim

• Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co

• David Leebron and Y Ping Sun

• Headquarters

• Madhatter Coalition

• Mouth Watering Media

• Orange River Advisors, LLC

• OwlSpark

• Rachel and Bruce Deskin

• Saifee Signs

• Station Houston

RSVP!

Looking to apply?

• Apply by midnight, the evening of February 18th. 
• Only one application per startup team may be submitted.  Applicants will be asked to answer a variety of questions about the venture, to submit an executive summary (no more than 3 pages), as well as a one minute video (YouTube or Vimeo) of a team member pitching (informal, mobile phone video).
• All startup team applications must be the original work of applicants.
• At least one member of your team must be a current Rice student (undergraduate or graduate), or alumni (less than 5 years out). The Rice affiliate must be an active contributing member to the team beyond an advisory role, and he/she must give the final presentation if selected as a finalist.
• We will announce finalists by March 1st. Finalists will be required to attend two mandatory training sessions on pitch scripts and pitch delivery.  It is imperative that all members of your team participate in these two sessions. However, in order to maintain eligibility to present at final competition, at least two members of team must be at pitch script feedback session, and the team member presenting at competition must participate in the pitch delivery feedback session.
• Startup teams must not have accepted any institutional or non-institutional funding in excess of $150,000. Non-institutional funding includes contests, grants, friends and family, bank loans, etc. where there is no equity ownership associated with the funding.  The NRLC committee reserves the right to deliberate the eligibility of any team.

Previous Participants (Info on this site: http://launch.blogs.rice.edu/2017-final-showcase-teams/)

If you have any questions regarding the application process or event, please contact Caitlin Bolanos at caitlin.bolanos@rice.edu. 

Application Closed until 2019

Looking to sponsor?

Please contact caitlin.bolanos@rice.edu for more details regarding sponsorship. We have various tiers of sponsorship and look forward to collaborating.