Rules — MIT $100K

GENERAL RULES

Who Can Enter

Entry is free.
You may enter as an individual or as a team.
Each team may submit one idea, and each person may belong to only one applying team.
Every team must include at least one currently registered MIT student. Individual entrants must be currently registered MIT students.
"Currently registered MIT students" includes all full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate students, including PhD and doctoral candidates.
MIT students must use their @mit.edu email address when submitting.
One student cannot serve as the sole qualifying MIT student for more than one team.
At least one MIT student from each team must attend every required event. Non-MIT team members are welcome and encouraged to attend.
All entries must be the original work of the entrants.

Building Your Team

We encourage teams to include MIT faculty, alumni, postdocs, researchers, and staff, as well as students from other schools and people from outside the MIT community. Every team member must be a full-fledged member of the team.

Maintaining Student Status

Your qualifying MIT student(s) must remain actively registered at MIT for the entire competition cycle, from initial submission through the LAUNCH Finale and prize distribution. If a qualifying student withdraws from MIT shortly before or after a stage appearance, the team will undergo an eligibility review, and any awarded funds may be rescinded.

Funding Limits

Your team's total external funding must stay within your track's limit. This applies both when you apply and throughout prize distribution.

Equity Funding

You may not have accepted equity funding for the idea you are presenting. This includes venture capital, angel investment, convertible notes, SAFEs (Simple Agreements for Future Equity), and any other dilutive funding. In practice, your team cannot have sold equity to anyone outside the team, including non-managing founders.

Exception for student-led venture funds: ACCELERATE and LAUNCH teams may accept investment from a student-led venture fund (for example, Dorm Room Fund or Rough Draft Ventures), provided that amount plus all non-equity funding stays within the track limit above. This exception does not apply to PITCH.

Non-Equity Funding

The following count toward your total funding:

Prizes and grants
Donations from friends and family
Bank loans
Gifts
In-kind and corporate gifts: substantial in-kind support, personal subsidies, or corporate gifts provided to founders or to the venture
High-value assets: direct or indirect use of high-value personal or corporate assets funded by outside backers, such as private aviation, chartered travel, or shared corporate infrastructure. These are treated as a capital contribution to the team.

Disclosure Requirements

At Registration

Submit any term sheets your team has received or signed.

After You Apply

Your disclosure obligation continues from the time you apply through the semifinals, the LAUNCH Finale, and prize distribution. Notify the Organizing Committee promptly if your team:

Enters term sheet negotiations with any institutional or angel investor
Receives a verbal investment commitment or letter of intent
Reaches a conditional closing agreement with any investor or funding source
Is actively seeking investment (include your target amount and the status of those conversations)
Closes a new funding round or accepts new non-equity funding
Experiences any other material change in its financing

A deal does not have to be legally closed to require disclosure.

Exceeding Your Funding Limit

Teams that enter advanced-stage negotiations or secure verbal commitments that would bring their total funding above their track limit, before or during the competition, will be disqualified. The MIT $100K prize is meant to be foundational funding for early ventures, not additional capital for ventures that are already fully backed.

Documentation at LAUNCH

If your team received any funding after applying, you must provide supporting documentation at or before the LAUNCH Finale. This may include term sheets, SAFEs, convertible notes, grant letters, or other agreements. Be prepared to present and explain your funding structure at LAUNCH.

Verification

The Organizing Committee may request:

Timelines of investor communications and fundraising milestones
Term sheets and other financing documents for review
Any other records needed to confirm compliance

Failure to disclose funding developments as they occur may result in immediate disqualification.

How Eligibility Decisions Are Made

Final eligibility authority. External judges evaluate pitches. The MIT $100K Managing Directors and Organizing Committee have final authority over all eligibility decisions.

Review of final standings. If a finalist is found to be exploiting loopholes, misrepresenting its funding, or otherwise violating the spirit of the competition, the Managing Directors may, in consultation with MIT leadership, adjust or overturn the final standings.

Gray areas. Some funding arrangements or eligibility questions may not fit neatly into these rules. In those cases, the Organizing Committee will deliberate and share its decision with the team. Organizing Committee eligibility decisions are final and cannot be appealed.

Judging Panel. The Judging Panel may disqualify any entry that, in its judgment, violates the letter or spirit of the competition's guidelines, processes, or rules. Judging Panel decisions are final and binding.

Your Representations

By submitting a business plan, you confirm that:

You have all necessary rights to the plan and the information in it
The information is accurate and complete
Submitting it does not violate any contract or third-party right, including patents, copyrights, trade secrets, confidential information, trademarks, publicity rights, or privacy rights