CLASSROOM ACTIVITY: Venture Capital Fair
A game where simulated “biotechnology companies” compete for investment funds.
Purpose:
Biotechnology is a business (click here for more about biotechnology as a commercial enterprise) and every biotechnology company requires capital – money – to pay its employees, purchase equipment and supplies, and so on. In its early stages of development, a company generally has good ideas for product(s) and has reason to believe these products will be profitable, but they have not yet begun to produce or sell anything. Therefore, in the early stages, companies rely on investors to provide capital.
A venture capital fair is an event where investors listen to brief presentations from various companies that are seeking capital. Based on these presentations, the investors select those companies they think will be profitable and they consider investing money in those companies. In this activity, the class stages a mock venture capital fair. This activity will:
- Introduce the business side of biotechnology
- Demonstrate some of the valuable products that are being developed by biotechnology companies
- Provide practice in delivering an effective presentation
Activities:
- Your instructor will assign you to a small group representing a particular biotechnology company (or your instructor may have groups find a company to represent).
- Using the internet and resources provided by your instructor, find out as much as you can about your company.
- Prepare a five minute presentation promoting your company. Include a brief and understandable description of your company’s product(s) and a plan for your company to grow and generate revenue.
- Present your presentation as a group to the class, each of whom is a venture capitalist with $1,000,000 to invest (alas, the money is not real). You will also have $1,000,000 to invest.
- At the end of all the presentations, “invest” your money in any company(ies) you want, except you cannot invest in your own company.
- The company that receives the most venture capital wins.
Notes To The Instructors:
- This may be a good activity for students to practice using Power Point, assuming the school has resources to display such presentations.
- We usually provide small prizes for the winning company members.
- This activity can have an effective motivational component. Most students want to do work that is meaningful and they are often very interested in the products of companies, particularly those that may cure or diagnose disease.
- It is best to select small, local companies that students might visit or where they may eventually work. Alternatively, there are many interesting companies with excellent websites.
- Play money is difficult to find in large enough denominations for this activity, and so a template of $100,000 is provided (LINK).
The printable version of this document.
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