Invest Nebraska held its first annual state-wide “East 2 West—Nebraska New Venture Competition” on Dec. 11, 2009, at the Del Ray ballroom in downtown Lincoln. Based on the Nebraska Business Plan Competition, a local competition held in Lincoln in 2006 and 2007, as well as a regional business plan competition held in McCook, Neb., the new competition is the result of a partnership between Invest Nebraska, the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, the University of Nebraska Technology Park and Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development. As part of a contract with the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, Invest Nebraska received a $500,000 grant to conduct five regional events and one statewide competition similar to the Nebraska Business Plan Competition each year for five years. This year’s regional competitions took place in Scottsbluff, Norfolk, McCook, York and at Peru State College.
Applicants to the state-wide competition submitted a business plan for initial review. Selected finalists then gave an oral presentation to a panel of judges at the Del Ray on Dec. 11. The impressive judging panel included names like Charles Hull, co-founder of Archrival, a youth brand marketing agency; Cheryl Beamer, educator and professional coach; Paul Eurek, chairman and chief executive officer of Xpanxion, a global software engineering company; Richard Baier, director of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development; Matt McNair, board chair of Invest Nebraska and vice president of the University of Nebraska Foundation; Bradley Walker, president and CEO of Nanonation, Inc., a Nebraska based software developer and systems integrator for digital merchandising and consumer messaging; and Gordon Whitten, founder and CEO of Sojern, Inc., an Omaha venture capital backed company. The winner of the competition received a $50,000 prize.
From 25 business plans submitted, seven finalists were selected. Of those seven, three entries were from Lincoln, one from Omaha, one from Los Angeles and one from Deuel County. An Omaha native, Jimmy Winter, won the competition and the $50,000 for his company, RockDex, is a web-based service that analyzes trends and buzz about bands and artists online in order to help to music industry make better marketing decisions. Although the site is already up and working with several clients, Winter said $50,000 will be helpful in growing the business.
“It will help get us in front of some larger clients,” he said in a Lincoln Journal Star article released after the competition. The money is an equity investment in the company made by Invest Nebraska, a company located at Tech Park whose mission is to “promote capital formation for, and provide operating assistance to, high impact entrepreneurs and investors in Nebraska.”
The Nebraska New Venture competition and the regional competitions are a terrific way for Invest Nebraska to further its mission in Nebraska.
“We are truly interested in high-growth or scalable new start-ups in Nebraska. However, we have found there are very few such businesses in the state. Our hope is that these competitions will encourage Nebraskans to bring their ideas forward and the competitions will provide them an opportunity to receive some start-up equity that they may not otherwise be able to raise,” said Dan Hoffman, executive director of Invest Nebraska. This year’s competition was a success, and plans are already in the works for next year’s competition, which may be held in Omaha.