The competition that trains student venture capitalists in real world situations is going national with student entrepreneurs from across the country arriving to pitch their businesses to young venture capitalists in Halifax.

Until now, the regional Venture Capital Investment Competition, now in its eighth year, has only featured entrepreneurs from the Atlantic region. This year, the 12 teams of young venture capitalists will also assess founders from Ontario, B.C., and the Prairies.

The contest is the creation of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at University of North Carolina. Under their umbrella, contests are held around the world.

The Canadian version is run by the Venture Capital program at the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University. This year’s geographical expansion comes at the request of student judges, who hail from across the country.

For both founders and young venture capitalists, the contest is a unique and challenging experience, said business professor Ellen Farrell in an interview. 

SMU became home to Canada’s VCIC in 2018.  "For entrepreneurs, the contest is about gaining visibility, exposure and experience,” Farrell said.  

“There is not another contest like this in Canada.  All Canadian VC students compete in Halifax.  SMU students compete in New England.  The Canadian contest is very, very competitive. There have even been challenges in the past.”

This year's undergraduate students will assess three founders, and post-graduate teams will assess three more, with half the founders coming from across Canada, and half from the Atlantic region.

Farrell said student venture capitalists are given slide decks provided by the founders, and the teams then have just 36 hours to evaluate the founders, conduct due diligence, and create term sheets for the founder they select for a mock investment.

“It’s a lot of time pressure to conduct due diligence and write term sheets – a very technical process -- In that time frame,” she said. “On the day of the event, the student venture capitalists can’t talk to anyone beyond their team.”

Saint Mary’s students have had a lot of success in making venture capital investments, exits, and placing in the competition through their experience with their own VC fund, Venture Grade: Student Venture Capital Fund.

Founded in 2016, Venture Grade is a VC fund raised and managed by graduate and undergraduate students at the university. The fund is connected to Silicon Valley’s C100 group, Boston’s Canadian Entrepreneurs in New England, and local VC funds like Invest Nova Scotia, Build Ventures, Concrete Ventures, Tidal, NBIF, and Island Capital Partners, Farrell said. 

Among the companies SMU students have invested in are regional ventures such as Aurea’s Shine, Ashored, Bright Breaks, and they have had a 2X exit for a 26 percent return on Trip Ninja. 

The students also invested $12,500 in Halifax-based KorrAI, a mineral exploration and mining technology company that provides a Data as a Service platform through which geological spectral and surficial data is collected and assembled into layers to form a digital map product.

This year’s VCIC competition, which now consumes 21 rooms at the university, will be held February 21 at Saint Mary’s.