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Important Events

• September 2019:
  Mellie Price becomes Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs Executive Director; John Sibley Butler is named Faculty Director
• January 2018:
  John Sibley Butler becomes Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs Director.
• October 2015:
• TVL is named the 2015 MBA Roundtable Innovator Award winner.
• October 2015:
  TVL announces the end of the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition. The Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition is expanded to twice a year.
• October 2015:
  BeatBox Beverages, a TVLIC competitor, secures a $1 million investment from Mark Cuban during an episode of Shark Tank.
• November 2014:
  Jon and Rebecca Brumley endow the Jon and Rebecca Brumley Business Accelerator in Rowling Hall.
• July 2014:
  Nine of the 24 hottest startups included in the Austin Chamber of Commerce Austin A-List worked with TVL or participated in TVLIC.
• July 2014:
  The TVL Leadership Practicum is added for graduate students who wish to participate in.
• February 2014:
  2013 The first TVL Scholarship Competition is held.
• March 2013:
  Wells Fargo Bank awards a three year $450,000 grant to support clean energy entrepreneurship through the Venture Labs Investment Competition.
• July 2012:
  Rob Adams and NuMat Technologies, 2012 Global VLIC winner, ring the closing bell at NASDAQ, an annual event for the global winners since 2003.
• May 2012:
  Athena Laboratories, a team from the Master of Science in Technology Commercialization Program at McCombs, is runner up in the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition. Since its inception, the competition has awarded $1.3 million, and 2,045 students from 17 countries have competed in front of 1,369 judges.
• May 2012:
  Texas Venture Labs is renamed Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs in honor of a $6 million gift from entrepreneur Jon Brumley, BBA ’61.
• March 2012:
  TVL announces partnership with GE in which TVL students will bring their experience performing market validation to WattStation, a new GE product.
• February 2012:
  Eighteen of the 35 companies on the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s Austin A-List of local companies investors say have strong growth potential have ties to the McCombs School, including 10 with ties to Texas Venture Labs or the Venture Labs Investment Competition.
• December 2011:
  TVL has facilitated more than $20 million in funding for more than half of the 30 companies that have gone through the accelerator program.
• October 2011:
  Accenture awards TVL a $600,000 grant to fund fellowships for recent graduates who have participated in TVL. These fellows will provide program leadership and oversight while they work on their own ventures.
• May 2011:
  Texas Venture Labs hosts the first Venture Week, culminating in the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition.
• November 2010:
  TVL hosts inaugural Venture Expo, featuring Austin’s entrepreneurial elite and showcasing new companies and initiatives that represent the university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
• September 2010:
  TVL welcomes first class of graduate students from UT schools of business, law and engineering to work with accelerator companies.
• September 2010:
  TVL welcomes inaugural 10 portfolio companies, including Hurricane Party and Ordoro, both founded by former students.
• June 2010:
  Randall Crowder, the first Texas Venture Labs Fellow, is hired.
• May 2010:
  Founders of Phurnace Software, the 2006 Texas Moot Corp winners, make a donation to Texas Venture Labs to fund entrepreneurial consulting as part of TVL’s initial launch.
• March 2010:
  Moot Corp Competition changes name to Venture Labs Investment Competition. “This competition is far from moot and parallels the real-world process and realities of developing and launching a venture-backed company,” says Venture Labs director Rob Adams.
• March 2010:
  Texas Venture Labs (TVL) launches to make it easier for student and faculty entrepreneurs to start businesses by providing a faster, step-by-step method to bring their innovations to market
• September 2005:
  Rob Adams becomes Moot Corp director.
• 2004:
  Moot Corp receives a grant from the Kauffman Foundation for the Moot Corp Fellows Program.
• 2004:
  UTOPIA project, Creating a Fundable Business Plan, is launched and available through UT Austin library.
• August 2003:
  Global Moot Corp Competition winner opens the Nasdaq Stock Market.
• 2003:
  First Moot Corp Fellows Program is held to train university faculty members from across the United States on how to run a business plan competition.
• 2003:
  Gary Cadenhead is recognized as one of the top three entrepreneurship directors by Entrepreneur magazine.
• 2002:
  No Longer Moot: The Premier New Venture Competition From Idea to Global Impact book chronicling the birth, growth and global impact of the program is published.
• 2002:
  The MOOT CORP Competition®: Catalyst for Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Activity chapter in Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship Innovation and Economic Growth, Volume 14 is published.
• 2001:
  Moot Corp Pontoon Fund founded to provide early stage bridge loans of $100,000 to Texas and Global Moot Corp champions.
• 2001:
  The inaugural Latin American MOOT CORP® Competition is held in Sao Paulo, Brazil hosted by Fundacao Getulio Vargas.
• 2000:
  The MBA Program in Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at Austin was recognized as the Model MBA Program in Entrepreneurship for 2000 by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
• 2000:
  The Ivey Graduate School of Business at the University of Western Ontario launches the first Canadian MOOT CORP® Competition.
• 2000:
  Red Herring calls the Moot Corp Competition “the granddaddy of them all.”
• 1999:
  The first Australian MOOT CORP® Competition begins and includes teams from Australia and other Pacific Rim countries.
• 1999:
  Moot Corp Director Gary Cadenhead is awarded the Entrepreneurship Education Pedagogy Innovation of the Year Award by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship for the Moot Corp New Venture Modules.
• 1998:
  The Chinese University of Hong Kong holds the first Asian MOOT CORP® Competition. The best business schools in Asia representing China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand compete.
• 1998:
  Success magazine calls the Moot Corp Competition “the mother of all business-plan competitions.”
• 1997:
  Moot Corp is held in conjunction with the Texas Venture Capital Conference, which includes an expo at which entrepreneurs showcase their ventures to several hundred VCs in attendance, some of whom judge the competition.
• 1997:
  Gary Cadenhead and Ray Smilor publish the book Moot Corp New Venture Modules which includes business plans, videos and study questions from the Moot Corp Competition. The modules are used around the world to teach MBAs how to evaluate, write and present their business plans.
• 1993:
  Moot Corp winner moves into Austin Technology Incubator to launch its venture, moving the competition beyond simply an academic exercise.
• 1993:
  Business Week recognizes the Moot Corp Competition as “The Super Bowl of World Business-Plan Competition”.
• 1992:
  Gary Cadenhead becomes the director of the Moot Corp Prgoram.
• 1990:
  Moot Corp invites international schools: London Business School, Lyon Graduate School of Business (France) and Bond University (Australia) to compete for the first time.
• 1989:
  Moot Corp goes national, with Harvard, Wharton, Carnegie Mellon, Michigan and Purdue competing.
• 1984:
  Moot Corp—the world’s first business plan competition—is founded by Texas MBA students Steven A. Mailman, MBA ’84, and Barbara Oppenheimer, MBA ’85, with 11 teams competing. The first several years involved only UT MBA students.