WOLFVILLE, N.S. — Five Acadia University students are hoping to duplicate a surprise win at a Halifax venture capitalism competition at the competition’s global finals.
Rian Mizzi, Gabriel Blumberg, Lee Scully, Blake Robinson and Zackary Mckibbon know they are the underdogs heading into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Venture Capitalist Investment Competition on March 23.
They are among just a few Canadian teams heading to the competition, and unofficial team spokesperson Rian Mizzi says his teammates know winning is a longshot but hope they succeed in spite of it and show their story is one investors should buy into.
“Us being Canadian will turn heads. We’re also a group of guys who threw things together, learned fast and raised money to get there – if we do well, the story could be worthy of an investment,” he says.
The five students competed at the Venture Capitalists Investment Competition March 8 at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, where the competition simulated the investment of a multimillion-dollar investment fund into real start-up companies.
“Imagine Shark Tank, but the other end – we had to vet the companies ourselves,” says Mizzi.
It was a win that caught them by surprise when they beat three other Atlantic teams for the $1,000 prize and ticket to UNC, so Mizzi says the team won’t be leaving things to fate this time.
“We’re five guys having fun, who prepared a few days before and found it suited us well. And now there’s pressure put on because we won, and it’s crazy – we’ve had to sit down and work out why we won and how to repeat that,” he says.
The students have received aid from Acadia for their trip’s $8,000 price tag and will receive help from Joe’s Food Emporium and Anvil bar owner Joe Raffi who donated proceeds from cover charges and bar sales during its St. Patrick’s Day celebrations to their trip costs.
Mizzi says everything has been moving so quickly but they’ve grown more confident after hammering out numbers and strategies.
He says the prospect of meeting venture capitalists from Silicon Valley, New York and Toronto remains daunting, but says the team feels strongly if they’re able to place in the top few teams at the competition, real results could come out of the investing simulation.
“It’s going to be a very different culture there, but we’re hoping we can run a venture capital fund together if we win this. We’ve got the story, and if we get the results, it could happen,” he says.
