Ellen Farrell is looking for a few startup founders or CEOs to help with an international venture capital event for students this spring.  

The entrepreneurship prof at St. Mary’s University’s Sobey School of Business is hoping to find two or three startups interested in pitching at the international Venture Capital Investment Competition, which SMU is hosting in March. The startups would be required to pitch to the competitors in the student event, then work through the day with the teams as they try to put deals together.

The VCIC is a tri-continental organization that hosts competitions at universities around the globe, and the SMU tournament will be the first ever held in Canada. It’s designed to teach students about venture capital and the funding of startups.

Farrell said there are residual benefits for the entrepreneurs that help out as they will learn a lot about the VC process and rub elbows with experts in the field.

“This opportunity is an brilliant role-playing drill for entrepreneurs seeking to raise funding in the future," said Farrell in an email. “Entrepreneurs receive a very effective immersion in venture capital: vamping up their pitch decks, responding to multiple term sheets, conducting mock negotiations with top graduate level students, and having lunch with a panel of venture capitalists."

Venture Grade – the $200,000 VC fund overseen by SMU students -- will host the competition March 2 and has already received applications from Dalhousie, University of New Brunswick, Memorial University of Newfoundland, University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier University.

At the VCIC, student teams are given an imaginary $100 million to invest. They must pick one of the pitching startups to back. Real venture capital investors serve as a panel of judges to assess which teams do the best job.

Farrell is looking for companies in need of about $2 million to $4 million to pitch, but would also like to hear from companies needing more or less than that.

The judges include Atlantic Canadian investors Gerry Pond of East Valley Ventures, Lidija Marusic of Innovacorp, Chris Moyer of Pelorus Venture Capital and Brenda Hogan of the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation. Farrell said the organizers continue to add judges from across Canada. 

One entrepreneur will receive the  “VCIC Regional Start-up of the Year” award, and Farrell said that the history of the VCIC shows that about one-quarter of the participating startups go on to get funding.

Any interested entrepreneurs should contact Farrell at Ellen.Farrell@smu.ca.

Disclosure: St. Mary University is a client of Entrevestor.