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Harvard Business School announces New Venture Competition finalists

Rock Center for Entrepreneurship

Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.

2 min read

On March 4, Harvard Business School student-led teams pitched their startups to 88 judges in the first round of the HBS 2023 New Venture Competition (NVC) Business Track, managed by the School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.

Sixteen semifinalist teams were selected to move on to the next round, and from that group, eight finalists were invited to pitch at the March 30 finale on the HBS campus in Boston.

Those Business Track finalists will join another four from the Social Enterprise Track, who were selected from a pool of 57 teams by eight preliminary round judges and 20 semifinal judges. The Social Enterprise Track, managed by the School’s Social Enterprise Initiative, is for eligible graduate students across Harvard University with new ventures that drive social change using nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid models.

At the competition’s finale, student finalists will compete for a share of $225,000 in cash prizes to fund their startups. The School will offer a $75,000 Grand Prize, a $25,000 Runner-Up Prize, two $5,000 Audience Awards, three $5,000 Touch Tech Venture Awards (for Most Promising Climate Tech, Pharmaceutical, and Deep Tech Ventures), in addition to in-kind services.

More than 200 judges from such fields as venture capital, private equity, law, accounting, philanthropy, impact investing, and social entrepreneurship vigorously review the new ventures in each round of judging.