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The Rice Business Plan Competition is the world’s richest and largest graduate-level student startup competition. It is hosted and organized by the [[Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship]]. This is the 15th year for the competition. In that time, it has grown from nine teams competing for $10,000 in prize money in 2001, to 42 teams from around the world competing for more than $1 million in cash and prizes. In 2014, more than 1200 applications were submitted. More than 170 corporate and private sponsors support the business plan competition. 155 past competitors have gone on to successfully launch their businesses and are still in business today, raising in excess of $844 million in funding. The competition is designed to give collegiate entrepreneurs a real-world experience to fine tune their business plans and elevator pitches to generate funding to successfully commercialize their product. Judges evaluate the teams as real-world entrepreneurs soliciting start-up funds from early stage investors and venture capital firms. 76% of judges surveyed considered investing in a team that presented at the 2014 RBPC or referred a team to a third-party investor.[http://alliance.rice.edu/About_RBPC/|] ==Join==