Aunt Mary’s Beverage Company from the Ivey Business School – Western University won $15,000 and first place at the 2017 IBK Capital – Ivey Business Plan Competition, held January 20-21, 2017. The 19th edition of Canada’s premier business plan competition was sponsored by IBK Capital Corp. and the Pierre L. Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship.
Aunt Mary’s is developing an enjoyable, convenient and effective oil consumption method by providing consumers with powdered beverage mixes capable of emulsifying and counteracting the foul taste of essential and cannabinoid oils. The team included Ryan Bauer, Erik Lapointe and Michael Palumbo, who are all current MBA candidates at Ivey and are working on their venture at the newly announced Western Accelerator.
“It was a great experience. We are thankful for the sponsors whose prize money will enable us to further our product development efforts and to the MBA program and Western Accelerator who have enabled us to move our venture well past the project stage in a short period of time,” said Lapointe.
The grand finals also included Team Grox Industries from the University of Arkansas and Team REVOJel from Thammasat University (Thailand). Team REVOJel won the second-place prize of $4,000 for its plan for an affordable food stabilizer replacement for Pectin. Team Grox Industries won the third-place prize of $1,000 for its plan to develop a new method of producing safe and scalable cross-linked Graphene Oxide for advanced applications in surface coatings, composites, RFID, and energy storage.
The nine-team competition consisted of representatives from the University of Arkansas, University of Louisville, University of Waterloo, Thammasat University, and the Ivey Business School.
The competition included a workshop by Albert Behr from Behr & Associates, highlighting the challenges faced by Canadian entrepreneurs in developing global brands. Anton Rabie, HBA ’94, of Spin Master Ltd., also shared highlights from his entrepreneurial journey during a fireside chat with Eric Morse, Executive Director of the Pierre L. Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship. Rabie discussed how three undergraduate students from Ivey and Western University formed one of the largest, most innovative toy companies in the world.
The IBK Capital – Ivey Business Plan Competition was comprised of an esteemed panel of judges:
Albert Behr - Behr & Associates Inc.
Bas Van Berkel, MBA ’06 - BerQ Capital Inc.
Mike Boyd, MBA ’76
Dennis Ensing - DCF Capital Partners
Ian Haase, MBA ’10 - Entrepreneurship (Propel) at Western University
Robyn Hochglaube, MBA ’02 - Citizen-Rad
Rajah Lehal, MBA ’06 - Clausehound
Justin Leushner, MBA ’03 - Tech Alliance
Dominic Lim, PhD ’09 - Ivey Business School
Jacoline Loewen - UBS Wealth Management
Jaclyn Longo, HBA ’14 - Western Accelerator
Harman Malhi - Tech Alliance
Morgan Rosenberg, HBA ’15 - Tech Alliance
Shaloo Savla, HBA ’05 - Fidelity Investments
Colleen Sharen, HBA ’93 - Brescia University College
Steve Suske, MBA ’77 - Suske Capital Inc.
Jeremy Ward - Tech Alliance
Miranda Werstiuk - IBK Capital Corp.
Michael White, MBA ’00 - IBK Capital Corp.