Launch a Startup

The Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition (TVLIC) mimics the real-world process of raising venture capital. Graduate students from the University of Texas System present their ideas for new businesses and receive invaluable feedback from entrepreneurs and investors. Many TVLIC competitors go on to launch their businesses and countless others leverage the experience in their careers as leaders in their fields.

The Spring 2021 TVLIC included 15 of the top graduate student startup companies competing in three divisions. After narrowing the field to three division winners, the finals kicked off with some fantastic pitches. The winning team was NiSOC.

The United States Government is actively searching for less expensive and more reliable solutions to its current radiation detection capability at US ports of entry. NiSOC has secured SBIR funding from the DoD for its innovative ( patented) solution based on a semiconductor platform. NiSOC successfully demonstrated its proof of principle in Phase I. Using funding from Phase II, NiSOC successfully demonstrated a working prototype semiconductor chip.

NiSOC also received the James D. Pippin Veteran Award given to the most promising startup in TVLIC with one or more veteran co-founders. Congrats to this team for taking home this exceptional award along with the Texas Champion grand prize! 

The Texas Superstar Award went to Bold Move Beverages in second place and the Texas Rising Star went to Root Medical Translation in third place, who also won the ScaleHealth Innovation Award. The E. Craig Nemec Elevator Challenge Award is given to the best elevator pitches delivered by TVLIC competitors. The three winners of this wonderful quick-pitch component were NiSOC, Root Medical Translation and GRIT Chew.

The Fall 2021 TVLIC will be held on Friday, December 3, 2021. We can’t wait to continue this tradition of excellence then!

Join a Startup

Gain real-world experience and course credit working for startups in the TVL Practicum class. All majors are welcome with a good many from the MBA, law, engineering, pharmacy, and natural sciences programs.

Graduate students enroll in the TVL Practicum to experience the startup reality. They solve meaningful cross-disciplinary problems and learn to apply academic principles in the real world. They build valuable job skills and strengthen their resumes with proven experience. Not to mention the ability to network with top-tier startups, founders and investors and possibly find a job, raise funding or identify team members.

The TVL Practicum offers students the chance to participate in semester-long consulting projects solving important problems alongside the company’s founders. If admitted to the program, students will work closely with two startup companies on: market validation, competitive analysis, financial analysis, and business model assessment. Practicum students also receive extensive funding guidance from professors and entrepreneurs.

Applications for the Texas Venture Labs Practicum Spring 2022 are open.  UT Austin graduate students with a taste for entrepreneurship should apply.  

Questions?  Contact us at infoTVL@mccombs.utexas.edu.

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Investment Competition

TVLIC is the real deal. Past participants, such as the founders of uShip, BeatBox Beverages and Ordoro to name a few, have gone on to do great things after launching their startups at TVLIC. Many other participants have leveraged their TVLIC experience and feedback from the judges to accelerate their careers outside of entrepreneurship.

The 2020 Fall TVLIC winning team was FireTeam. For the military community who are experiencing geographically dispersed relationships, low performance and accountability problems, FireTeam leverages the latent power of the service community and existing relationships to bring this community together through a mobile application that allows them to select their own FireTeam to compete on various forms of health to level up on our platform and life.  The winning team came from the Masters of Science and Technology class of 2021 at UT Austin and included Stephen Hoey, Byron Voneida and Dillon Lesovsky.

The 2021 Fall TVLIC will be held on December 3, 2021.  

TVL Practicum Course

We leverage the Austin ecosystem with unique, hands-on programs that extend across graduate programs on campus and the greater Austin startup community. Since 2010, 816 Master’s and PhD students have gone through the TVL Practicum.

TVL Practicum students work with a wide range of startups both pre revenue and post revenue.  Since 2010, 816 students have worked with more than 270 startups.  Check out the list of this semester's cohort of companies. 

Applications for the Texas Venture Labs Practicum Spring 2022 are open.  UT Austin graduate students with a taste for entrepreneurship should apply.  Questions?  Contact us at infoTVL@mccombs.utexas.edu.