Hoop Dreams Can Yield Funds in This Tourney

Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, a firm co-founded by a former Princeton University basketball star, is sponsoring a venture capital competition modeled on the NCAA basketball tournament.

The contest will start with Internet-related business plan entries from students at 64 colleges. The winner, to be announced in late March following a final four pitch meeting shootout in San Francisco, is guaranteed at least $1 million in seed funding.

Dan Beldy, a partner at Hummer Winblad, said the contest is designed to help the firm establish connections with students at schools beyond such traditional powerhouses as Stanford University and MIT. Beldy said the firm has already fielded entries from such schools as the London School of Economics and the University of China.

“The beauty is the democratization of the start-up process,” Beldy said. “If it goes as well as I think it can, there may be more than one company funded.”

Qualifying teams must present an Internet-related business plan by mid-February and must be enrolled in an accredited university. Details on the contest are available at https://winbig.humwin.com.

One of the founding partners of Hummer Winblad is John Hummer, who was an All-Ivy League player for Princeton in 1969 and 1970. But Hummer, who also played in the NBA for the Buffalo Braves, never advanced beyond the second round of the NCAA tournament.