Rice Business Plan Competition to Award New $100,000 Department of Energy Clean Energy Prize

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HOUSTON – (Sept. 26, 2011)– The Rice Business Plan Competition and Rice University in Houston have been selected to receive a three-year grant from the Department of Energy totaling $360,000.   This grant will fund a new $100,000 DOE Clean Energy Prize beginning with the 2012 Rice Business Plan Competition on April 12-14.

The purpose of this prize is to encourage students from across the country to create new businesses and transform promising energy technologies from U.S. universities and national laboratories into innovative energy products that will help to create jobs, boost American competitiveness, and strengthen our economy. The prize will serve as a catalyst to encourage the commercialization of promising technologies which have the potential for providing clean, efficient energy solutions for America.

The prize will be funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) as part of Startup America, the Obama Administration’s campaign to inspire and promote entrepreneurship.

The new DOE Clean Energy prize is a perfect complement to the Rice Business Plan Competition, which already offers two, $100,000 prizes in the area of clean energy, sustainability, recycling, and renewable energy: the $100,000 Waste Management “Think Green” Investment Prize and the $100,000 KPCB Prize for Clean Tech Innovation, sponsored by the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Houston is the energy capital of the world, and participation at the Rice competition enables aspiring energy entrepreneurs to connect with the leading energy companies and venture capitalists.  Houston is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any city other than New York, and many of these are energy-related.   Moreover, the City of Houston purchases more clean power than any other metropolitan city in the United States, while Texas leads the nation in the production of wind power.

In 2011, the Rice Business Plan Competition attracted 510 applicants from around the world for the 42 spots to compete for more than $1.3 million in front of over 250 venture capitalists and other judges.   In its first 11 years, the Rice competition has a successful track record of encouraging new startups.  More than 133 companies have been successfully launched after competing at Rice, raising more than $394 million in funding and creating thousands of new jobs.

The DOE will fund six university competitions throughout the United States.  The winners of each of the six competitions will compete in a final competition in Washington, D.C. in the summer.  The focus of this program is to connect research and development activities with critical venture capital funding and expertise that will help increase the rate and scale of clean energy technology market penetration across the country. 

“By promoting innovation at our nation’s universities and cultivating America’s next generation scientific and technical leaders, we will ensure our nation's competiveness in the clean energy economy of tomorrow," said Dr. Henry Kelly, DOE’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. "The awards announced today support the Administration's continued effort to ensure that America has the workforce we need to secure our energy future, create jobs here at home, and win the future.”

The competitions seek to:

- Increase clean energy businesses coming out of universities and national labs
- Create a new generation of entrepreneurs to serve the nation’s energy mission
- Capitalize on the U.S. investment in clean energy research and education to:
     - Capture a leadership position in the global marketplace
     - Enhance our economic security, environmental security, and national security

“As the world’s largest and richest business plan competition, we are pleased to be working with the Department of Energy to ‘jump start young entrepreneurs’ and support the commercialization of new clean energy technologies,” said Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance, which hosts and organizes the Rice Business Plan Competition. “The faster we can advance technologies to provide clean, sustainable energy, the faster that we can eliminate the world’s dependence on current energy sources that are limited in supply, becoming more costly to produce and creating environmental issues.”

The Rice Business Plan Competition is supported by Insperity (title sponsor) and over 100 corporations, foundations, and individuals including the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Greater Houston Partnership, DFJ Mercury, Waste Management, Fortune magazine, the NASDAQ OMS Stock Market, The GOOSE Society of Texas, and KPCB.

About the Rice University Business Plan Competition (RBPC)

The Rice University Business Plan Competition is the world’s largest and richest graduate-level business plan competition. It is hosted and organized by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship which is Rice University's flagship initiative devoted to the support of entrepreneurship.

2012 will be the 12th 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 $1.4 million in cash and prizes in 2012.

In 2011, applications to compete increased to more than 500 teams from around the world from 420 the previous year. More than 120 corporate and private sponsors support the business plan competition. More than 250 venture capitalists and other investors from around the country volunteer their time to judge the competition, with more than half of the judges coming from the investment sector. Thirty-eight percent of teams (133 out of 354 past competitors) have gone on to successfully launch their business.  More than $394 million in early-stage funding has been raised by Rice Business Plan Competition participant companies.

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship (Rice Alliance) is Rice University’s nationally-recognized initiative devoted to the support of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship education, and the launch of technology companies. It was formed as a strategic alliance of three schools: the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business in collaboration with the Vice Provost and the Office of Research.

Since inception, the Rice Alliance has assisted in the launch of more than 300 start-ups which have raised more than $1billion in early-stage capital. More than 1,300 early-stage companies have presented at the 125+ programs hosted by the Rice Alliance and raised more than $2 billion in funding.www.alliance.rice.edu.

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