Pitch Your Innovative Venture at the 2024 Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition

This year’s Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition, hosted by the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts (DEC), is right around the corner! The Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition is the flagship venture competition at Tufts in which teams compete for a chance to win cash and in-kind services valued at over $250,000 across all prizes and awards. Applications open on February 1st for teams led by students, faculty, staff and recent alumni across all 11 schools and colleges at Tufts.

The Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition is the perfect opportunity for anyone interested in entrepreneurship to practice their pitching skills, refine their business plan, and connect with the larger entrepreneurship community at Tufts. In the buildup to this year’s Semifinals, DEC is hosting a number of competition Info Sessions and Application Clinics to help teams prepare, as well as a Pitch to Match event.

“It’s a fantastic competition to help you focus your solution, develop a pitch for it, and really develop how to sell it,” shared Ruti Ejangue of YummyGreens, 3rd Place winner in the 2023 Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition, who went on to join the 2023 Tufts Venture Accelerator cohort.

As teams interested in competing in this year’s Competition work to finalize and perfect their applications, there is no better time to revisit the excitement of last year’s Finals.

The 2023 iteration of the Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition Finals brought together Tufts’ entrepreneurial community at in-person watch parties. A buzz of anticipation filled the third floor of the Joyce Cummings Center as an audience gathered to watch the competition and the finalist teams delivered their pitches. We captured some of the action on camera and interviewed finalist teams and the DEC staff who made the event possible.

Through the application clinics leading up to the competition and the feedback of judges during the competition, the Tufts $100k helps anyone looking to build their entrepreneurial mindset and skillset. “As a company, I think it was a really great experience for us,” said Young Tanoto, Co-founder of Blancour, a Finalist team in last year’s Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition. “[The Tufts $100k] forced us to scrutinize our company and ask questions we had never thought to ask before. I think it was a really invaluable experience.”

If you have an entrepreneurial venture or an idea for an impactful business, we encourage you to apply for the Tufts $100k New Ventures Competition. Visit the competition page for more information, and register for an upcoming info session and application clinic to learn how DEC can support your entrepreneurial endeavor.