The 28th INSEAD Venture Competition (IVC) showcases social enterprises!

On June 20th, the 28th INSEAD Venture Competition (IVC) was held by the INSEAD Centre for Entrepreneurship (ICE) on the Fontainebleau campus with videolink to Singapore. The competition is a platform for INSEAD MBA and EMBA candidates to showcase their entrepreneurial skills and ideas and bring these ideas forward into venture plans, which in turn will become real business ventures.   This year, the winning team, Kookooli, and the team which won the Coromandel Foundation Social Impact Award, Missing Middle, were both launched during INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Bootcamps. Kookooli was launched during the Fontainebleau October bootcamp and Missing Middle during the November Singapore bootcamp. It is exciting to see the bootcamp methodology pay off with such creative and impactful ventures.  The winning team, Kookooli, took home a prize of 10,000 Euros and consisted of MBAs Eirik Hogner, Frederik Kongsli and Itamar Stern. Kookooli is an online marketplace where people can buy fresh food from local food producers at their own convenience. Through their web and mobile platform, consumers can access a wide-range of top quality food products at affordable prices. Kookooli will pick up freshly made products directly from the producers and then deliver the orders to customer’s homes or to centrally located pick up points. The second prize winner, Team Treasure Bowl, took home a prize of 5,000 Euros and consisted of MBA members Angela Flaemrich, Aleksandra Zhdanova, and Leon Williams. Their idea involves an innovative toy product for kids in Europe.  Finally, the winning team of the Coromandel Foundation Social Impact Award for 5,000 euros, was team, Missing Middle, composed of MBAs Mehmet Energin, Lisette Steins, Marieke Ebbing. When one of the team members worked for a micro-finance organization in Uganda, she saw that small loans can have a large positive impact on borrowers’ lives. She also realized that these loans were merely a short-term solution for entrepreneurs – they did not manage to grow their new business beyond a certain limit. Once the entrepreneurs outgrew the micro-finance loans, there was still a long way to go before they could fulfil the requirements of a retail bank and receive the necessary funding for scaling up. In addition to the strong social impact seen in the winning teams, ICE was also delighted to welcome two of our INSEAD Social Entrepreneurs in Residence to campus for the finals. Charlotte Hochman served as a finalist judge, and the keynote speaker for the finals was Ms Caroline Watson who is the founder and director of a social venture in China, Hua Dan. ICE is grateful to the IVC sponsors for their support of entrepreneurship at INSEAD and to alumnus, Sajan Koch EMBA’08, for his generous contribution to the Coromandel Foundation Social Impact Award. IVC Contacts: Magdalene Khng – Operations & Admin Joanne Loi – Coordinator, Asia Campus Jane Venet-Fellowes - Coordinator, Europe Campus entrepreneurship@insead.edu I www.insead.edu/venturecompetition