New Venture Competition

The annual New Venture Competition (NVC) is a three-round pitch competition that gives early-stage BU entrepreneurs a chance to win up to $18,000 and transform their ideas into something real! 

With two tracks for Tech Ideas and Social Impact Ideas, the competition is appropriate for ventures of any kind including tech, consumer, creative, or social impact. 

Throughout each round, participants are connected with Innovate@BU’s resources including coaching and mentorship, founder and team skill-building, media exposure, and more.

The New Venture Competition is open to BU student-led (undergrad or grad) or recent alumni (graduated within last 1 year) ventures in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages. See more details under Who Should Participate? 

Apply to Round 1: Pitch & Pizza

How it works: 

  • The NVC runs two parallel tracks: 
    • Tech ideas: A business whose primary motive is profits includes for-profit products/services, media, fintech, medtech, etc. 
    • Social impact ideas: A business (for-profit or nonprofit) that has an economic, social, cultural or environmental mission-aligned to public or community benefit.

  • The NVC consists of three rounds: 
    • Round 1: Pitch & Pizza, One Minute Pitches without slides. This round is held six times throughout the fall and spring semesters. 
    • Round 2: Semi-Finals, 10 Minute Pitches + 10 minutes of Q & A from judges and an audience
    • Round 3: Finals, 10 Minute Closed Pitches + 10 minutes of Q & A from judges 

      Prerequisite: Before participating in Round 1: Pitch & Pizza, you are highly encouraged to practice your pitch at an Idea Night (held 2x/month)and take advantage of other Innovate@BU resources that will help you give your best pitch possible! Suggested resources include: 

    Rules & Expectations


    Format & Logistics

    Meet the 2019 Finalists!

    Social Impact Teams: 

    • Boston Afterschool Music launched a weekly music program at a K-8 in Roxbury that doesn’t provide music ed. We are looking to reach more students and add instrumental lessons, remaining a stable part of the community.

    • BRÜZD Foodsrescues excess produce that would otherwise go to waste at the farm level, and delivers them to homes in Boston for less than supermarkets charge. 

    • Credyty is a student loans financing platform that aims to increase access to upper education in LATAM through Fintech solutions. 

    • Healthy Gamer is an online platform helping people with video gaming addictions. We are writing a new model to treat this modern epidemic affecting 20M in the US with an addictions specialist from McLean. 

    • Mæven enhances first-year college students’ academic performance by yielding gamified tutoring experiences in the academic fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Foreign Languages, and Math.

    • She Who Reads is a youth mentoring organization for young women in public high school that foster positive changes through goal setting, self-discipline, skill development, and friendship. 

    Tech Teams: 

    • Alcancio is a 100% digital bank that allows cheap, easy and convenient access to financial tools for the unbanked and underbanked in Latin America.

    • CoCo College is a platform that exclusively connects students within their own university, where buying and selling books, TV’s, couches and more becomes a seamless interaction.

    • Interpret is an app that will use a business model similar to Uber’s to provide real-time, accurate translation services worldwide.

    • Pangissimo strives to offer consumers access to affordable surround sound entertainment by designing and manufacturing modular speakers that value sound quality, portability and accessibility.

    • Rilla is online platform where entrepreneurs can connect with each other based on anonymous idea matching, learn how to build a new venture, and manage all new aspects of their business.

    • VERTO is a secondhand eCommerce platform that facilitates pre-owned exchanges with thorough user-vetting, flexible delivery options including same-day door to door delivery, and no commission fees.