SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire - June 23, 2010) - Leading early-stage global venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and Cisco (
"For the past 25 years we have invested in passionate entrepreneurs who want to change the world, and it is wonderful to see the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial spirit spreading to universities around the globe," said Tim Draper, founder and managing director, DFJ. "We are thrilled by the quality of our finalists, and we are excited to meet these extraordinary individuals from all over the world through Cisco TelePresence conferences. We were also very pleased to discover that four of our finalist teams have female CEOs. DFJ has had a strong track record in investing in women CEOs, and the trend we're seeing here may just be the start of a whole new era."
The plans of the 16 finalists, nearly all of which won local university competitions, were selected from thousands of eligible business plans in 17 countries across the globe (Brazil, China, Finland, France, Japan, India, Ireland, Israel, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Uruguay, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.). Selection criteria included the quality of the management team, technical innovation, the addressable market size, competitive positioning, barriers, capital efficiency, and financial projections. Most of the finalists are still in the seed or early stages of business or technical development. In addition to the financial investment awarded to the winner, both DFJ and Cisco will assist the winner and finalists in leading the next wave of disruptive technologies by providing mentorship and professional assessments regarding their submissions.
"These 16 dynamic teams from around the world embody the entrepreneurial spirit of our global business plan competition," said Hilton Romanski, vice president of corporate development at Cisco. "They are taking on interesting challenges and tackling tough issues with thoughtful and creative solutions, and we look forward to meeting them via Cisco TelePresence suites and learning more about their business plans next week."
The competition will use Cisco TelePresence suites to allow the finalists to present their business plans to a San Jose-based panel of seasoned investors from DFJ, the DFJ Global Network of Partner Funds and Cisco. Cisco TelePresence technology enables collaboration through a live, face-to-face network communications experience where participants feel as though they are sitting in the same room even though they may be located thousands of miles apart.
Competitors and the media will be invited to view the competition via simulcast beginning at 8 a.m. PDT on June 29, and the winner will be announced at 5 a.m. PDT on July 1, 2010.
Please contact Kristin Carvell at Cisco if you are a member of the media interested in attending the competition or viewing it via a live webcast.
Finalists hail from 18 schools in seven countries. The complete list is as follows:
| Name of Company | Company Location | University | Business Plan Summary | ||
| Ambiq Micro | US | University of Michigan | Leads the way to ubiquitous computing with the world's most energy-efficient microcontroller (MCU). | ||
| Cambridge Nanotubes | UK | University of Cambridge | Provides unique high-energy materials capable of increasing battery life for laptops and cell phones by up to 100%. | ||
| CellTV | Israel | Ariel University Center | Enables multiple HD channel broadcasts to an unlimited number of clients without decreasing the throughput of Wi-Fi networks. | ||
| Commuter Advertising | US | DePaul University and University of Dayton | Creates and sells relevant and entertaining 10-second audio sponsorships inside trains and buses that are geo-coded and played at specific times; shares revenue with public transit agencies. | ||
| Deli Worm | China | Sun Yat-sen University | Uses automation systems to mass produce live organic worms to substitute current fish meals and mitigate the depletion of fish stock. | ||
| Digital Proctor | US | University of Texas-Austin | Creates enterprise online security company with first market vertical in distance education. | ||
| Epythia | Russia | Higher School of Economics | Enables context-aware planning service with alerting and rescheduling based on a user's current and planned location. | ||
| F.A.N. MEDIA | China | Peking University | Provides free printing service to consumers that places targeted advertisements on one side of the free F.A.N. MEDIA printing paper and allows consumers to use the blank side for printing documents or photographs. | ||
| FayShine | China/US | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Provides next-gen image-recognition technology for comprehensive shopping guidance. | ||
| GlucaGo | US | Purdue University and Indiana University | Provides revolutionary drug injector that is easy to use and low cost, and has been designed to fit in existing filling lines for freeze-dried products, allowing unstable drugs or vaccines to maintain their stability at room temperature | ||
| IOS Financial | US | Northwestern University | Enables online marketplace that, in a targeted and value-added way, matches banks seeking to grow with small businesses seeking commercial loans | ||
| Lark Technologies | US | MIT | Provides compelling nonmedical solutions around optimizing sleep via smart phones. | ||
| MicroMed | India | IIT Kharagpur | Provides microfluidics technology for use in pathological detection that requires minimal human intervention, reduces costs, and improves efficiency in India health care markets. | ||
| Nanodyne | US | UC Davis | Increases hard disk drive capacity by 800% through a process that utilizes metal-organic-silicon thin film, or MOSTF (code-named HyperDrive). | ||
| OsComp Systems | US | Harvard and MIT | Commercializes a breakthrough patent-pending compression technology that will revolutionize the natural gas industry. | ||
| Silicon Reef | Brazil | Federal University of Pernambuco | Designs high-efficiency power converters and power management circuits for handling the energy-harvesting process. | ||
About Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Draper Fisher Jurvetson ("DFJ") backs extraordinary entrepreneurs everywhere who set out to change the world. DFJ achieves its mission through its DFJ Global Network of Partner Funds. Together, DFJ and the Network manage over $6B and have made more than 600 investments on four continents. With a 25-year history of success across diverse sectors and market conditions, DFJ has led the way investing in emerging technologies, from the Internet and life sciences to clean energy and nanotechnology. DFJ has been proud to back over 500 companies across many sectors including such industry changing successes such as Hotmail (acquired by MSFT), Baidu (BIDU), Skype (acquired by EBAY), United Online (UNTD), Overture (acquired by YHOO), Athenahealth (ATHN), EnerNOC (ENOC), TicketsNow (acquired by TicketMaster), Feedburner (acquired by Google), Interwoven (IWOV), Four11 (acquired by YHOO), Parametric (PMTC), and Digidesign (acquired by AVID). The DFJ Network includes DFJ, DFJ Athena, DFJ Changzhou, DFJ Dragon, DFJ Esprit, DFJ FIR, DFJ Frontier, DFJ Gotham, DFJ Growth, DFJ InCube, DFJ Mercury, DFJ Portage, DFJ Tamir Fishman, Draper Triangle, DFJ Vina, DFJ-VTB Aurora, Element Partners, and Epic Ventures. For more information, please go to www.dfj.com.
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