Undergraduate Team Wins, MBA Team Places 2nd in Global VCIC Finals

Georgetown McDonough’s undergraduate Venture Capital Investment Team placed first in the Global Undergraduate Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), while the MBA team placed second in the Global MBA VCIC in April 2021. Global VCIC is the world’s largest venture capital competition with over 120 university and graduate school teams competing. This year’s event was the first ever all-virtual VCIC. 

In the VCIC, students play the role of venture capitalists who must evaluate real startup companies and present an investment strategy to the VC judges. 

The undergraduate team included Deepika Jonnalagadda (SFS’21), Vedant Mehra (SFS’22), Matteo Palacardo (B’22), Tim Palmieri (B’22), and Alex Valin (B’21). The MBA team included Alison Toal (MBA’21), Ayush Jain (MBA’21), Natalie Poston (MBA’21), Deepak Mishra (MBA’21), and Greg Hoffman (MBA’21). 

“So much of this win is a testament to the McDonough alumni who volunteer their time and expertise in the venture capital industry,” said Palmieri. 

Georgetown McDonough’s MBA teams have won four of the last eight global championships, in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019, while undergraduate teams won two previous championships in 2013 and 2014.

“The experience of competing in the VCIC competition at Georgetown has been the seminal experience of our MBAs,” said Hoffman. “We are immensely proud of our performance and the work we put in, as well as the relationships we were able to make along the way.” 

Students had support preparing for the competition from alumni like Sara Zulkosky (MBA’14), part of the 2013 winning team, and Justin Timlin (MBA’19) and Blake Pennington (MBA’19), part of the 2019 winning team.

“The VCIC is quite unique as it requires students to apply nearly everything they learn in a business curriculum, including finance, marketing, negotiations, strategy, teamwork, communications, and entrepreneurship,” according to Jeff Reid, professor of the practice at Georgetown McDonough, founding director of Georgetown Entrepreneurship, and faculty advisor to both VCIC teams. “Georgetown’s continued success is due mostly to the talent of our students, but also to the support they receive from a growing community of alumni now active in venture capital and startups.”