TVLIC Rules

The Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition (TVLIC) launches you on the road to raising venture capital. The competition allows current graduate students from The University of Texas to gain real experience while developing and growing new ventures based either on their own ideas and technologies or those developed by others.

These rules are intended to act as guidelines outlining the intent of the competition. Final eligibility to compete and allocation of awards remains at the sole discretion of Texas Venture Labs.

General Eligibility

  • Companies must currently be operating or intend to launch within six months of the competition.
  • Companies may compete provided they did not win First Place in a previous TVL Investment Competition.
  • Individuals may only compete with one company per competition.
  • All entrants must be competing with stand-alone startup operating companies, which excludes investment vehicles, existing company expansions, licensing entities and roll-ups.
  • Competitors must be currently enrolled in a graduate degree granting program at the University of Texas. Certificate, post-doctoral program and undergraduate students may be part of the company but can not participate as presenters.
  • Currently enrolled UT graduate students must own at least 10% equity in the company.
  • All sessions are open to the public and JBTVL has the right to use all business plans, videos, images and presentations for educational or other purposes.
  • Participating teams are responsible for ensuring their eligibility. Violations will result in a team’s disqualification from the competition as well as forfeiture of any awards and prize money.

Competition and Award Eligibility

  • Competitors must be present at the Awards Ceremony in order to claim any award.
  • One competitor from each team must present in the TVL Elevator Pitch Challenge.
  • TVL Veteran Entrepreneurship Award: The competing team must have at least one U.S. military veteran competitor.
  • To be eligible for the Technology Commercialization Award, some component of intellectual property in the venture pitched must be licensed from the University of Texas, have a disclosure with the Office of Technology Commercialization, or must have the intention to do so.
  • To be eligible the Health Innovation Award, competitors must demonstrate in the pitch a health-related venture (e.g. medical device, healthcare IT solution, product or service for the benefit of health and wellness, etc.).
  • To be eligible for the Sustainability Innovation Award, competitors must demonstrate in the pitch a sustainability-related venture (e.g. circular economy, IT/supply chain efficiency and conservation, etc.).
  • To be eligible for the Energy Innovation Award, competitors must demonstrate in the pitch an energy-related venture (e.g. clean energy, climate tech, etc.).

Application Requirements

  • Submit an application at bit.ly\TVLIC_App.  At that time, you will be asked to submit the Executive Summary and Pro Forma Financial Forecast.
  • Executive Summary: A two page, 12 point font, one inch margin double spaced executive summary in PDF format.
  • Pro Forma Financial Forecast: A three year financial forecast with revenue and cost projections over time. These documents will be printed for finals judges. Please format for print-ability.
  • Examples and templates for file uploads can be found here.

Optional Application Items

  • Capitalization Table: A current capitalization table of all shareholders of the company and the fully diluted equity equivalence of the company.
  • A summary of the status of any patents or licenses (including patents pending).
  • Business Plan: Plans are to be submitted as a single, printable PDF file. Plans are limited to no more than 21 pages (not including a single cover page or single table of contents page). The 21 pages are limited to a maximum of 15 pages of text and 6 pages of appendices. Page format is double spacing, 12 point font, with 1 inch top, bottom, left and right margins. This line spacing and font requirement applies to the textual content of the document and not to titles and descriptions accompanying pictures, graphs, tables or worksheets. All pages must be numbered excluding the cover page and table of contents. The cover page must include the company name, team member names in alphabetical order and the degree they are pursuing. Appendices should be included only if they are referenced in the written plan and must print out in a font size that is readable. If these guidelines are not followed, the plan will not be distributed to the judges.
  • Business Model Canvas: Canvas document to be submitted as a single, printable PDF file.

Other Requirements to Compete

Details and deadlines will be provided to teams who are invited to the Semifinals.

  • Release Form: JBTVL must receive a permission form signed by every competing member of your team acknowledging that JBTVL has the right to use all business plans, videos, images and presentations for educational or other purposes.

Presentations

  • Presentations are interactive and delivered in real-time to a panel of investors on a 30 minute running clock including both presentation and Q&A.
  • Competitors are encouraged to present using slides and other visual aids; however, all presentation equipment and connectivity is the responsibility of the presenters.
  • Competitors may not observe the competitors’ presentations in their assigned division until after they have presented.
  • Only current UT graduate students may present and participate in the competition.