Cisco, DFJ name business plan winner - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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The presenting members of the Husk Powerr Systems team were Universityyof Virginia, Darden School of Business 2009 graduatesw Chip Ransler and Manoj Sinha. The team starter their company in Indiain 2007. Husk Powe Systems designs and operates miniature power plants that convertg rice husksinto electricity, serving off-grid rura l Indian villages. The team will receive a $250,000 investmentr from Menlo Park-based DFJ and San Jose-based Ciscoi (NASDAQ:CSCO) to help take the company to thenext "Our mission at DFJ is to help entrepreneurs change the With this competition, we certainly witnessedf that entrepreneurship has no and we look forward to expanding it to even more universitied worldwide next year," said Tim Draper, managing directotr of DFJ.
"This competition demonstrates the tremendous powerr of collaboration throughCisco TelePresence," said Hilton Romanski, vice president of corporatwe development for Cisco. "We were able to bring togetheer 16 talented teams from 15 separatew schools in sixdifferent countries, all in the coursed of a normal business day. It was excitin to hear from this diverse and visionarty group of global entrepreneur s and to learn about theirbusinesz plans." Finalists in the competition were selected and evaluated in the same way that venture capitalists evaluate start-ups.
For each company, the judgess considered the management teams, addressable market size, competitive positioning, barriers, capital efficiency, and financia l projections. In addition to the financial investment awarded to the both DFJ and Cisco will continue to work with the winne r and other finalists in leading the next wave of disruptive technologiew by providing mentorship and professional assessments regardingtheir submissions.