When you are a student with a brilliant idea and want to see it realised, it often demands more than hard work and knowledge within the field to succeed. In order to realise the business potential of the idea you need to shift from thinking as an innovator to think­ing as an investor.

RSP Systems started up their company in the wake of winning Venture Cup 2005/2006, after which they received investments from Syddansk Innova­tion and Syddansk Venture. The four founders of RSP Systems (pictured below from left to right), Stefan Ovesen Banke, Olav Storm Kjestrup, Morten Hennebjerg and Thomas Juhl, who are all from the University of Southern Danmark, have used their participation in Venture Cup to challenge their con­cepts of product and business idea. The unique idea of the company is to develop a device that via reflections of light can measure molecule composi­tions, which amongst other things can be used as a non-invasive method for diabetes patients to mea­sure glucose levels in the blood. 

From idea to business plan

"We started the process of writing a business plan for potential investors, when we were encouraged to participate in Venture Cup. And this we have never regretted. This is of course easy to say when we actually won, but besides the money, we also walked away with many valuable tools and con­tacts," stud.cand.negot Thomas Juhl explains.

The total of DKK 215.000 that RSP Systems won in Ven­ture Cup has subsequently been invested in the company. As civil engineer Morten Hennebjerg says, "participation in Ven­ture Cup has enabled us to think as investors and focus on the commercial part of the business plan. However, it has been im­portant to us at the same time to have an extensive focus on the technical part. The technical part is extremely important when you want to convince ven­ture capitalists to invest in your project".

A company is born

Stefan Ovesen Banke gets the last word: "Venture Cup has been a great experience. Being part of the competition has generated a lot of publicity, which has made it possible to create and maintain inter­est in our company. Now the difficult part starts: To make the business plan a reality and create a prototype. So, for the time being we have to put our inner investor aside - for some time". RSP Systems will very soon have the first prototype of the mea­suring unit ready, and they estimate that the future market potential is in the order of 300 million dol­lars. There is, however, still a long way to go before the money starts rolling in.