How to Join VC?
2025 Timeline
December 1, 2024
Applications Open
February 1, 2025
Application Deadline
March 1, 2025
Finalists Announced
March 28, 2025
CMU VC Demo Day
Eligibility
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Submissions should be submitted by an individual or a team of up to five members.​
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The student entrepreneurs pitching their startups at the CMU VC MUST be undergraduate students. Teams are allowed to have non-undergraduates, but the main founders must be undergraduates. Teams with member(s) taking a leave of absence are still eligible to participate.​
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Teams must not have raised more than $500K USD in funding from institutional investors, angels, or competitions.​
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Participants are NOT required to be Carnegie Mellon students. The CMU VC is open to any and all undergraduate students that are currently studying in the United States or Canada.
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Submissions should be the individual's or team's original work.​
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Teams must pitch at the final round to receive any prizes for placing Top 12.
Confidentiality | Non-Disclosure Agreements
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There is no formal non-disclosure agreement in place for the CMU VC. Participants' executive summaries and business plans will only be seen by the CMU VC planning committee and the judging panel. Neither of those documents will be distributed by the Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Association unless explicit permission is received from the team.​
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Teams should be aware that the competition is an open event, and we are not able to require audience members to sign non-disclosure agreements. Confidentiality has never presented a problem in the past, and we don't expect any issues to arise from it in the future. Feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.
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Finalists will be requested to share executive summaries and application information for future exemplary use but this is not mandatory.
Photography / Video Policy
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We love to take photos during our events and feature awesome startups on our website, affiliated websites, social media platforms, email communications, and other affiliated organizations with the CMU Venture Challenge. If you would like you or your team to NOT be photographed or videoed during the event, please let us know. Please note that no notice may result in photos and/or videos taken during the course of the event that may be repurposed and shared on our various platforms.