Winners of the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition earn a $135,000 prize package including Austin Technology Incubator office space, mentoring and consulting services; a full-page ad in Inc. magazine; and consulting with the McCombs entrepreneurship faculty worth $25,000.

And they also get the chance for their 15 minutes of financial fame, ringing the closing bell of the NASDAQ stock market. On July 26, NuMat Technologies co-founders Tabrez Ebrahim and Christopher Wilmer joined Rob Adams, director of the Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs, at the NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square. NuMat is a cleantech Northwestern University spin-out that computationally designs and synthesizes high-performing nanomaterials for gas storage and separations applications. They beat graduate student teams from 36 universities around the world to claim the 2012 investment competiton title.

“It was great to be at the Nasdaq with the NuMat team and their supporters." Adams said. "Based on the quality of the team, I suspect more presence on the NASDAQ is in their future.”

Texas Venture Labs continued its high-profile Times Square outing with a commercial broadcast on the exterior of the 7-story tall NASDAQ video tower. Christine Chen, MBA '12 and owner of video production company Moth to Flame, edited the 30-second clip using existing footage, still photography, and streaming graphics that mirrored a stock ticker. See clips of the commercial as it broadcast live: