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Duke Students Secure Funding in Entrepreneurship Competition

MBright, a diverse start-up comprised of MBA candidates from the Fuqua School of Business and engineering Ph.D. candidates from the Pratt School of Engineering, win this year's Duke Start-Up Challenge

 

DURHAM, N.C. -- MBright, a Durham-based, next-generation digital display technology company, secured the first-place seed funding of $50,000 in the April 26 Duke Start-Up Challenge.

Nine start-up companies competed for more than $125,000 in seed capital and services in the final round of the Duke Start-Up Challenge's multi-stage competition. All of the participating start-up companies included students from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Pratt School of Engineering, School of Law, School of Medicine and undergraduate School of Arts & Sciences.

MBright, which competed in the for-profit competition, will use the funding to begin production on its third-generation liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) digital projection light engine. This engine promises to provide enhanced brightness and contrast for digital image projection, at a size much smaller than contemporary projectors.

MBright is a diverse start-up comprised of MBA candidates from the Fuqua School of Business and engineering Ph.D. candidates from the Pratt School of Engineering.

iCord, an interactive database of medical teaching cases, captured $20,000 in funding and services in the Social Enterprise competition.

In addition to the funding for MBright and iCord, two other teams took home seed capital. Intracardia's concept was a minimally invasive surgical procedure for closing undesirable openings in the heart. It secured the $20,000 runner-up funding, as did Mongo Light Company's product -- a hard-to-destroy waterproof LED lamp.

Last year's winning company, SunDance Genetics, was recently named one of Fortune magazine's hot start-ups of 2002. SunDance Genetics used its seed funding from the Duke Start-Up Challenge to run additional field tests on its drought- and disease-resistant seeds. Since the win, SunDance Genetics signed a licensing agreement with one of the nation's largest foundation seed companies and a royalty-free license with the United Nations to help stamp out hunger in developing countries.