Three of Wellington region’s newest start-up companies and would-be entrepreneurs were announced by Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast, as the winners of the 2008 Cable Car Challenge – Wellington region’s business plan competition.

The $50,000 major prize winner was awarded to BIMcache, a new company that intends to deliver a suite of unique industry and software-specific tools to assist the work-flow process and productivity of building industry professionals and CAD software users. Their first product, BIMcache Manager, is initially targeted at the world’s fastest growing and most popular CAD software package which has 320,000+ users and growth of 30% per annum. Orders have already been placed by seven large international architecture, engineering and design practices for this product even though the product is not scheduled for release until next month.

BIMcache will receive $30,000 in seed capital to grow their new enterprise, and approximately $20,000 of in-kind professional support services, while two runner-up prizes of $5,000 cash each were awarded to Life Incorporated and BONZ.

Life Inc, which produces environmentally friendly bottled water, was chosen for its environmental point of difference that is enabling it to take advantage of a market that is growing by 18% per annum. Their revolutionary bottles and labels - made from plant sugars - look and feel like traditional plastic but are compostable to soil in just 8 weeks. Bottled water is just the first of many consumer products in the pipeline for Life as it looks to fully utilise biopolymers.

BONZ is an idea to commercialise a new biomaterial based on significant research and IP developed by a team of scientists within Victoria University. This technology will address an unmet need: a manufactured bioceramic capable of replacing bone and teeth. In an industry like orthopaedics this will solve major problems such as bone grafts replying on human tissue donors, metals or plastics used in joint replacements not lasting long enough and needing to be replaced, and the fact that the human skeleton does not accept any of these materials as part of the skeleton. While still very early stage at this point the judges selected this as a runner-up due to its enormous global potential and potential applications across a wide range of industries.

The nine entrants, chosen from almost 200 entries, were selected to pitch their ideas to a judging panel of some of Wellington region’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors. These final nine applicants each had only twelve minutes, on the cable car’s climb to the top of the hill and back again, to convince the judges that their business idea should win the major prize.

This year’s judges included Sam Morgan of TradeMe fame, Sarah Gibbs of global skincare company Trilogy, Dion Mortenson from Movac, venture capitalist Mark Dossor and current MP and serial entrepreneur Mark Blumsky who chaired the judging panel.

The competiton has opened but we are still experiencing a few teething problems so more information will be available on this site later in the week. We will have the two page business plan template available with in the next day or two so check back to download it.

Stage One of the competition is open until August 16th so there is plenty of time to write that winning business summary.

Project Manager 9th July

We will be launching the 2008 Cable Car Challenge Business Plan competition on the 8th of July.Your business or idea could win you $50,000. Enter your business or business idea into the Cable Car Challenge - Wellington business plan competition and you could win $30,000 of seed capital and $20,000 of business services. Second prize is $10,000 seed capital and $5000 for business services.

So check out www.cablecarchallenge.com on July 8th to find out about the competition and how to enter.