qcue Wins 2008 Texas Moot Corp Competition

February 6, 2008, Austin, TX— qcue, an ecommerce solution for event ticket sales, beat out three teams to win the Texas round of the Moot Corp® Competition, the new venture competition hosted annually at The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business.

As winner of the Texas round, qcue lands a berth in this year's Global Moot Corp Competition and the Austin Technology Incubator Launch Package featuring the opportunity for a one year membership which includes strategic business consulting services and mentoring from a team of industry experts, office space, and access to discounted legal, accounting, and businesses services from top tier providers. The Global Moot Corp Competition will be held in Austin April 30 – May 3.

"I remember sitting here this time last year watching the presentations and thinking that I want to be here next year and here I am. I was impressed by the fact that the last three winners of the Competition had all received venture funding," said Barry Kahn, CEO of qcue.

Accurately pricing event tickets is difficult due to unknown and fluctuating consumer demand and the risks of overpricing. Scalpers have taken advantage of this arbitrage opportunity to create a multi-billion dollar secondary market While primary sellers fail to capture the mark-ups that result when tickets are underpriced, they face the consequences of poor attendance from overpriced tickets. qcue exploits the synergies between the primary and secondary markets by integrating elements of airline pricing and NASDAQ trading into current selling platforms, providing primary sellers the ability to dynamically price-to-market. The qcue team members include Barry Kahn, PhD Economics 2007; Jitendra Dalvi, MBA 2007, and Andrew Mills, PhD Computer Science 2008.

“I have enjoyed watching the evolution of this idea. One of the judges said that this was the best software plan he has seen come out of the Texas Moot Corp Competition” said Rob Adams, Director of Moot Corp Program.

qcue beat out three other finalists in the Texas round of the 2008 competition:

• Fantasy Action Network (FAN)
Using handheld wireless devices, Fantasy Action Network will provide bar patrons an innovative way to engage in Fantasy Sports while increasing bar traffic and revenue.
Kevin Reichle, MBA 2008; Mike Hamilton, MBA 2008; Aaron Trull, MBA 2008; John Mills, MBA 2008

• GenVasive Biosciences
GenVasive Biosciences is an agricultural biotechnology company focused on the value-added reselling of crop disease protection solutions through RNA-trait expression that will sell directly to large scale genetically-modified agribusinesses.
Chris Cano, MS Science & Technology Commercialization 2008; Abhi Ghosh, MS Science & Technology Commercialization 2008; Doug Whitman, MS Science & Technology Commercialization 2008

• WeSpeak
WeSpeak is a high quality video interpretation service that uses technology to address the fluctuating and expensive interpretation needs in hospitals and medical institutions.
Eric Zimmerman, MBA 2008; Ryan Pinto, MBA 2008

The finalists came from a field of ten teams which competed in the Texas Moot Corp Semifinals on January 23. The winner of each of the three divisions proceeded to the Finals. The judges also selected GenVasive Biosciences as a wild card team to compete.

The Moot Corp Competition simulates the process of raising venture capital. It is a unique partnership that brings together MBAs and business leaders. The judges function as an investment group seeking to reach consensus on the business venture they would most likely fund. The judges base their decision on the quality of the idea, the strength of the management team and the clarity and persuasiveness of the written plan and oral presentation.

This year’s judges were Michael Davis, President of Davis Law Group; Tommy Deavenport, Senior Vice President, Square 1 Bank; Rudy Garza, Managing General Partner of G51 Capital and Molly Pieroni, Managing Director of JatoTech Ventures.

Recent competitors in the Texas Competition include MacuCLEAR (2007, funded by Regent Technologies) Phurnace Software (2006, funded by Lone Star Ventures), Bigfoot Networks (2005, funded by Venio Capital Partners), and uShip (2004, funded by Benchmark Capital).

 
The Texas Moot Corp Competition is hosted by the McCombs School of Business at The University Competition was the first competition of its of Texas at Austin. The Moot Corp kind focused on entrepreneurship and is the oldest operating inter-business Competition school new-venture competition in the world. The Global Moot Corp is recognized as the Super Bowl of world business-plan competition.