The winner of the 2017 Rice University Business Plan Competition (RBPC) at the Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business celebrated their victory by ranging the Nasdaq stock market closing bell.
The RBPC is the “world’s richest and largest student startup competition,” helping more than 1,700 early-stage companies to get off the ground since it began in 2000. More than 200 former competitors have since gone on to successfully launch their ventures and have created over 2,000 new jobs. Twenty-four of the 200 businesses have exited with a market value of over $458 million.
The RBPC has been described by Forbes magazine as “the Super Bowl and World Series of business plan competitions, bringing together 42 university teams from around the world to pitch their ideas.”
Forest Devices, the 2017 competition winners, were given the opportunity to ring the closing bell of the Nasdaq stock market at 3 p.m. on October 10. The company’s CEO, Matt Kesinger, rang the bell alongside Brad Burke, Managing Director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, and Peter Rodriguez, Dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business.
Beginning in Pittsburgh, Forest Devices is a medical device startup that is working on a stroke screening device that could be used by all medical personnel in any environment. Forest Devices walked away with almost $700,000 of the $1.9 million awarded during the competition.
“We are honored to win the Rice Business Plan Competition,” Kesinger said of the event. “It has opened doors to new resources and relationships that have accelerated our progress, and ringing the Nasdaq bell is an example of that.”