Contact: Jim Aisner
617-495-6157
jaisner@hbs.edu

INTERNET RULES AT HARVARD BUSINESS PLAN CONTEST

BOSTON, April 23 -- The Internet was the center of attention in this year's Business Plan Contest at Harvard Business School, where localRewards.com was pronounced the winner yesterday at a special ceremony on the HBS campus.

The four winning team members, all members of the MBA Class of 1999, received the Dubilier Prize and $20,000 in cash and in-kind services.

localRewards.com plans to offer corporations customized loyalty programs, both on- and off-line, enabling companies to provide loyal customers with discounts and rewards from popular local merchants.

The contest runners-up were eBricks.com, an on-line construction materials auction exchange; OurWellness.com, which aims to use the Internet to streamline drug distribution in Europe; and Suppliermarket.com, which will provide manufacturing companies with innovative e-commerce tools to manage and improve their supply bases.

According to Michael Roberts, Executive Director of Entrepreneurial Studies at HBS, fifty teams submitted business plans for the contest, more than twice as many as in 1998. "This contest is one indicator of the high level of interest in entrepreneurship at Harvard," Roberts said. "Ninety percent of the members of the Class of 1999 have taken one course in the subject, 50 percent have enrolled in two, and 25 percent have taken three."

Among the speakers at the ceremony was Tony Tjan, whose team won last year's contest with its plan for Zefer Corp., now a successful Boston-based venture that assists major corporations in assessing and taking advantage of the range of opportunities available on the Internet. Since last year, Zefer has tripled in growth and in the size of its work force.

Other success stories from previous HBS contests include Chemdex (Palo Alto, CA), the leading provider of electronic commerce solutions in the laboratory supply market, which recently announced a third round of financing for $30 million; City Soft, Inc. (Boston), which hires and promotes software developers from the inner city to provide customers with Web sites and intranet applications; Crimson Solutions (Boston), originators of an on-line recruiting system; exchange.com (Cambridge, MA), which brings together buyers and sellers of hard-to-find items; Finale -- Room for Dessert (Boston), a restaurant specializing in fine desserts; and X-IT Products (New York), the maker of a unique emergency escape ladder.

The 1999 finalists were reviewed by judges from venture capital, accounting, and legal firms. .