Pune: BioFound Biotech won the Biz QuoTiEnt 2024 Finals held in Pune on March 15, 2024. Biz QuoTiEnt is an annual business plan competition for college students organised by the TiE U (University) team at TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Pune. Starting with 106 entries it was whittled down to five finalists over three rounds. The Business Plan competition is organised for all the TiE chapters across the globe. Winners from each country will take part in the global finals on 1st May 2024 in Silicon Valley, USA.
BioFound Biotech is co-founded by Arsh Chavan and Aditya Joshi. These students have put their heads together and developed an enzyme that aids in better conversion of molasses to ethanol. BioFound Biotech was awarded a cash prize of Rs. 1,00,000/- from TiE Pune.
The first runner up was SaralX founded by Akashdeep Bansal who wants to ensure that the digital world is made more accessible to People with Disabilities. Akashdeep Bansal was awarded Rs 50,000. The second runner up was Cognac Metaverse that plans to build a more realistic Metaverse. Aditya Gaurav (of Cognac Metaverse) was awarded Rs 25,000/-.
As part of its initiative to foster entrepreneurship amongst the student community, TiE launched Biz QuoTiEnt, a business plan competition, two years ago (in Pune). Says Vinit Deo, chairperson of TiE U Pune, “Our aim is to encourage students to become entrepreneurs rather than go out into the job market and seek a job. As entrepreneurs, they will be job givers. The students who were selected for the semi-finals were mentored by the TiE Charter Members (who are successful businessmen themselves) to give them a better understanding of how to look at their idea, how to validate it, how to write a business plan, etc. Our hope is that they will continue to work on their business ventures even after they pass out of college.”
TiE Pune also awarded category prizes for: Best Student Start-up for Social Impact won by SaralX, Best Student Start-up for Oral Pitch to AgroAIM, Best Student Start-up Idea to BioFound Biotech, Best Student Start-up for Presentation to Rika and Best Student Start-up for Teamwork to Cyber Chakra. In addition to these category awards Cyber Chakra and Raftech Solutions were given Finalist Certificates.
The Chief guest for the Biz QuoTiEnt chapter finale was Mr. Shirish Deshmukh Chairman, Defence Equipment’s Manufacturers Association. These five semi-finalists presented to a jury of three successful businessmen, Anil Tabib Founder ForesightINAD charter member Tie Pune, Chetan Rawal Founder & CEO, BioGenics Lab and Ranjeet Shetye Partner, YourNest VC Managing Director (India), Everstream Analytics. While giving the Jury’s Perspective Anil Tabib said, “to be honest it was very difficult to choose from these five. But I think what every start up founder must understand that you get five minutes to explain what your idea is, how it will work for the problem you aim to solve. You may romance with your idea but a VC or even the market looks at it differently. You have to be able to communicate it in one simple statement. I know it’s not fair, but then that is how things are.”
This programme was proactively planned and executed by the TiE U, Pune team which is chaired by Vinit Deo (Founder Posiview Consulting) and co-chaired by Dr. Anagha Pathak (Founder Unity I E and additional ventures) and Dr. Pratima Sheorey (Founder eVyaas Learning), associate members like Payal Doshi (Founder Preexam and My Class Admin), Yogesh Bramhankar (Head SCIE) and Dr. Amarpreet Ghura (Associate Professor, FLAME University).
