The CVC is a series of Challenges, or business plan competitions. Every year, alumni judges evaluate competitors in six different Challenges. Each has its own focus, save for the StartupColumbia Challenge which is open to any kind of business model, including not-for-profit and social enterprises.

Thank you to all who participated in the 2023 competition! Please come back January 1, 2024, for updated content, prize information, and open applications.

Open Track

The StartupColumbia Challenge is open to all Columbia University students and recent alumni (five years or less from their most recent degree) who are working on a startup. For details on eligibility, please see the Rules and Regulations section.

What are judges looking for? 

Judges are looking at a number of factors. One very important factor is whether there is clear evidence of the founder’s significant understanding of the customer gleaned through the hard work involved in customer discovery interviews. Judges will also be assessing the talent of the team- their communication skills, ability to build product, sell the product, their understanding of their market, as well as their level of dedication and grit. Is there a working MVP that the team has been testing with early customers? Early signs of traction and progress on key metrics will also be taken into account. 

Awards

Undergraduate Prize, Sponsored by Columbia College and run by CORE

First Place: $15,000

Second Place: $10,000

Third Place: $5,000

 

Graduate Prize, Sponsored by Columbia Entrepreneurship

First Place: $15,000

Second Place: $10,000

Third Place: $5,000

Registration Closed
Technology Track

The Tech Challenge is open to all Columbia University students and recent alumni (five years or less from their most recent degree) but teams must have one SEAS founding member (either recent alumni or student). For details on eligibility, please see the Rules and Regulations section.

All entries to the Technology Challenge must include business models based on a solid foundation of applied, solution-focused, technology innovation. 

What are judges looking for? 

Judges favor novel tech over novel applications of existing tech. Submissions should focus on product development, innovative design, and “builder” technologies including data analytics, biomedical solutions, software, or hardware. As always, cross-disciplinary teams were strongly encouraged.

Awards

Sponsored by Columbia Engineering

 

First Place: $25,000

Second Place: $15,000

Third Place: $10,000

Registration Closed
Media Track

The Media Track is open to all Columbia University students and recent alumni (five years or less from their most recent degree) who are working on a startup. For details on eligibility, please see the Rules and Regulations section.

What are judges looking for? 

The Brown Institute Innovation Challenge in Journalism, Media, and Technology aims to support ventures creating new kinds of content, designing new forms of participation, contributing to our understanding of media and society, or experimenting with entirely new ways to communicate. Successful projects can be either for-profit or non-profit ventures.

Brown encourages proposals for new tech-based or tech-enabled forms of media — these might make novel uses of computer vision, AI, NLP, machine learning, data visualization or even VR/AR to create, communicate, and interpret content. The Brown Institute is housed at Columbia Journalism School and its Innovation Challenge extends a special welcome to ventures that focus on the practice of journalism — developing tools to aid investigations, say, or designing new visualization platforms to experience stories. Projects might also address the business of journalism, perhaps proposing new models for local media or sustainable approaches to delivering content to underserved communities.

The eligibility criteria are quite broad. This challenge focuses on innovations in categories with less onerous regulations. For example, we’ll accept class I and II medical devices but not class III. Pharma is also not eligible. And just like the Fall semester, the Columbia-CareOne Healthcare Innovation Challenge was run in partnership with Columbia University Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Design. Your standing in the Fall track does not impact your standing in the Spring, you’ll be starting fresh.

Awards

 

First Place: $15,000

Second Place: $10,000

Third Place: $5,000

 

The three winning teams will also receive a paid 12-week fellowship (up to two people per team, on top of their prize money) to participate in Brown’s Summer 2022 program in entrepreneurship, designed to develop their ideas and produce a prototype. Brown’s summer program ends with one final competition which could award one of the participating teams up to $100,000 to continue work on their venture.

Registration Closed
Global Policy Challenge

SIPA Annual Global Policy Challenge (the Challenge) is focused on the following themes: (1) Geopolitical Stability; (2) Democratic Resilience; (3) Climate and Sustainable Development; (4) Inclusive Prosperity and Macroeconomics Stability.

Student teams are invited to apply to participate in the annual challenge and come up with innovative ideas that leverage technology and/or data to solve these themes.

Teams must include one SIPA student but may draw from other schools across campus including computer science, engineering, business, public health, etc. In addition, one team will be selected with a specific focus on Brazil. 

SIPA’s Annual Global Policy Challenge is composed of three (3) rounds of competition. A total of $50,000 will be awarded to the winning teams.  Note: Teams must be set up as a legal entity to receive the prize money.

For any questions, please contact us at SIPA.Challenge.Grant@columbia.edu

The application for the 2023-2024 SIPA Annual Global Policy Challenge is now open. 

Applications are due by October 2nd, 2023 at 11:59am.  Please visit this page to see required application materials.

To apply, please submit your materials via email to: SIPA.Challenge.Grant@columbia.edu

Registration Open

Columbia Venture Competition Rules and Regulations

Updated January 2023

Eligibility

Composition of Eligible Teams:

  • “Blended Teams”: Some teams founded by current Columbia students or Columbia alumni within 5 years of graduation may have a non-Columbia-affiliated co-founder. We will use the term “Blended Teams” to describe such applicants. To be eligible to compete and collect any awards, the founders of such Blended Teams must document the role all founders have had in the conception and development of the venture. To be eligible, such “Blended Teams” must have at least one current Columbia student or recent alumnus (within 5 years of graduation) who is a true founder who joined the team at the inception of the venture and has played a significant role in the company. The Columbia student or alumni founder should be the one to apply for the CVC on behalf of the team. If there should be any question about this issue and/or if it is in dispute, the CVC administrators’ rulings on eligibility will be final. To protect privacy, the outcomes of eligibility will not be shared beyond the impacted team.
  • CVC is intended for early-stage ventures founded, managed, and owned by current Columbia students or by Columbia alumni within 5 years of their most recent Columbia degree. These Challenges are not meant for mature ventures.
  • In the application process, all team members are asked to state their university and school affiliation with graduation degree and year. CVC administrators may also require proof of the length of time each founder has been engaged in their venture and may ask for access to the venture’s cap table. Refusal to provide this data will result in disqualification.

Amount of Dilutive Money Raised:

  • Teams that have raised $250K or more of dilutive investment are NOT eligible to apply for these Challenges.

Intellectual Property:

  • Eligible applicants that are commercializing technologies or IP licensed from Columbia University are eligible to compete, but ownership of the IP must be clearly stated and documented in the application process.
  • For all applicants, ownership of intellectual property and equity splits in the business must not be in dispute.

Number of Challenges a Team May Apply For:

  • Teams may only enter two Challenges per year. (See explanation above)
  • Teams who have won or placed in the top three for any CVC Challenge in prior years may not enter the same challenge again with the same business. However, the same team can enter another challenge or enter another completely distinct business. For example, a top-three team from the 2022 Undergraduate Challenge may enter the #StartupColumbia Challenge in 2023 with the same business or the 2023 Undergraduate Challenge with a different business.

Lastly, certain Challenges further restrict the eligibility requirements for teams. It is up to the team to fully review all eligibility requirements before entering a particular Challenge. Teams that enter a Challenge for which they are not eligible may be disqualified or asked to join another Challenge. Where possible and practical, disqualifications are not publicly announced.

Process

  • Teams can apply to only one Challenge.
  • If accepted into a Challenge, each team will be contacted with their pitch schedule.
  • Unless otherwise announced, most early-round pitches teams make will be held via Zoom, most finals will be live and in person.
  • Once the judging is complete, three winners will be announced for each Challenge (1st place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place). It is possible that two teams will tie for a given finishing place, in these cases, the award is split.
  • Winners will be announced shortly after the Finals.

Non-Disclosure Agreements

The Columbia Venture Competition does not support non-disclosure agreements. Teams should be aware that CVC administrators will not require judges to sign non-disclosure agreements. Participants’ executive summaries, videos, and pitch decks will only be seen by the Columbia Venture Competition administrators and the judging panel. Neither of those documents will be distributed more broadly unless explicit permission is received from the team. We advise that teams provide as much detail as possible without disclosing proprietary information or unprotected IP.