InvestMaryland Challenge: 259 businesses apply to inaugural biz competition [VIDEO]

The InvestMaryland Challenge, the state’s inaugural business plan competition doling out three, $100,000 prizes of investment funding, drew 259 entries of in-state and national businesses, according to MDBizNews.

From the MDBizNews report:

The challengers hail from at least 10 states, including Maryland and Washington D.C. (The Department of Business and Economic Development is still sifting through the list. The deadline was midnight [Dec. 13].) More than 60 judges, most of them professional investors and entrepreneurs themselves, will gradually winnow the list down through early 2013 and the winners will be announced in April. [more]

Money for the three prizes comes from the state’s InvestMaryland venture fund, a pool of $84 million raised in the spring that will be invested to early-, mid- and late-stage companies, mainly within Maryland state. As Technically Baltimore has reported, the money will be divvied up among businesses by venture capital firms and the Maryland Venture Fund.
Watch Governor Martin O’Malley speak about InvestMaryland during a Pitch Across Maryland tour stop at UMBC September 20:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvAHAFWq3bs&w=550&h=413]