Life Science Tennessee today announced the winners of its inaugural Business Plan Competition and Venture forum as part of its annual meeting.
Details remain scant, but we have been informed that the winner of the competition was Urova Medical out of Memphis. The runner up was NanOphthalmics while third went to EcoSurg/Randall Surgical. Urova walks away with $5000 cash and a grab-bag of in-kind services.
We will update this story with any further details that become available.
Here is the article we posted when the teams were selected:
Life Science Tennessee recently announced the six participants for its inaugural Business Plan Competition and Venture Forum. The competition will take place at the Nov 14-16 annual meeting of the non-profit member organization.
The six startup companies selected include NextGxDx, NanOphthalmics, Intellectual Property Exectuives (IPE), Randall Surgical Corporation, Urova Medical and Restore Medical Solutions. All are now involved in the 60-day process, which will entail attending seminars and honing their business plans before their final pitch.
They will compete for $5,000 in cash and a collection of in-kind services as well which could push the value of the prize up far higher.
Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the companies taking part in the program, whether presenting or entered in the contest call Memphis home, but some including NextDxGx (a JumpStart Foundry alum) call other parts of the state home.
In addition to the competition, eight other companies will present during the Venture Forum where the four TNInvestcos who generally invest in the life sciences (Memphis’ MB Ventures and Innova, and Nashville’s Limestone Fund run by Mountain Group Capital and Harry Jacobson’s TriStar Technology Ventures) have offered up between $25k and $50k in convertible debt funding to a competition or showcase participant. The possibility of $200k to a Tennessee Life Sciences play should be at least a little enticing.