MBA venture capital competition

Becoming a shark: The MBA venture capital experience

I’ve always dreamed of being one of the sharks on Shark Tank (or, in the Danish translation: ‘en løve i Løvernes Hule’), and this past weekend I was lucky enough for this to become a reality. As part of the MBA Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) Denmark, I was a venture capitalist for a day along with my amazing team FODA, consisting of: Francisco, Govinda, Kelsey, Oliver and myself. And what an experience it was!

Three Danish startups, two days of due diligence and preparation, one competition day lasting eight hours, five competing teams, three startup pitches, nine venture capital judges, three due diligence sessions, three evaluations, one term sheet and one partner meeting later, and we were named the winners of the 2021 MBA Venture Capital Investment Competition in Denmark.

Being fund managers for a global fund, our diverse team represented Latin America, USA & Canada, Australia & New Zealand, South Asia and Europe. Our vast industry experience in Health-tech, Finance, SaaS, Sales & Marketing and Agribusiness also gave our team a competitive edge when it came to understanding the various startups and their businesses.

For me, participating in the VCIC as an MBA student has been an incredibly valuable experience as I was able to apply learnings from our MBA classes such as Corporate Finance, Accounting and Marketing, to understand the business, market size, value propositions, product and finances. The academic knowledge provided our team with the tools to evaluate the business as a whole, build a valuation model for each startup and ultimately choose a startup to invest in. Having real venture capitalists working in the Danish ecosystem evaluating our performance and providing feedback after the event was also invaluable.

I very much look forward to working with team FODA for the VCIC European Regional Finals coming up on 5 March!