The undergraduate team from Saint Mary’s University finished third this weekend in the New England finals of the international Venture Capital Investment Competition, or VCIC

The team finished one point behind the silver medalists from Cornell, while the team from Dartmouth College won the event.

The VCIC is an international competition in which teams of graduate and undergraduate students compete to see which one makes the best mock venture capital investment. The Sobey School of Business at SMU will host the Canadian finals in March. Rather than enter its own competition, the SMU team each year goes to Boston to compete in the New England finals, which features a range of Ivy League schools.

The SMU undergraduate team comprised Jake Chambers, Asja Dillett, Wafa Wahab, Alex O'Brien and Alejandro Sanchez Alvira.

They put forward a “masterful defense of their valuation and term sheet,” said Ellen Farrell, the professor overseeing VC programs at SMU. “Judges and observers said the team had the best term sheet and the most well articulated defense.”

SMU is still looking for startups to present their companies at the Canadian regional finals on March 6. Founders must pitch to and negotiate with the VC teams in the competition. Startups can find more information and apply here.

The organizers will choose six startups for the regional competition -- three for the under-graduate competition and three for the graduate channel. These companies will pitch in person, go through six due diligence sessions (one with each student VC team), have lunch with the VC judges and negotiate term sheets with the teams that choose to invest in them.

The winning student VC team will proceed to the VCIC Global Finals in Chapel Hill, N.C., on March 27-28, where VC teams from seven countries will vie for the top prize.