2025 Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Submission

Competition year
2025

Active Dates (UTC):
Fri, 1 Nov 2024 00:00 - Tue, 28 Jan 2025 18:48
Local Time:
Fri, 1 Nov 2024 12:00 AM - Tue, 28 Jan 2025 06:48 PM

Imagine Cup Competition

Develop a functional version of your idea to advance your solution towards market readiness. Ensure this version is demo ready for judges and includes sufficient features and functionality to satisfy early adopters. Your product must require one (1) or more Microsoft AI service(s) to operate. Microsoft AI service(s) include Azure AI Services, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure AI Studio (now renamed to Azure AI Foundry portal).

You are required to submit the following materials to explain what you have built. These materials must meet all the requirements and collectively address each of the MVP round judging criteria provided in the Official Rules and Regulations. Please note that you must submit all the following materials to this round to compete even if you submitted a Lean Canvas to the Idea Submission round.

Pitch Deck: a slide presentation that you will use to present your startup. We recommend referencing the following resources when building your pitch deck:

• How to pitch your company learn module on Microsoft Learn

Your deck must meet the following criteria:

• Your deck must be no more than 15 slides, including an appendix. The file must be in PPT, PPTX, or PDF format. You must include your solution architecture and a comprehensive list of the Microsoft technologies used.
• The solution that you pitch must be fully functional and demonstrable to judges within your demo video (more information below).
• The file must be no larger than 100MB. You may compress your document into a ZIP file for submission.

Recorded Videos: including a 3-minute pitch video and a 2-minute demo video. Both videos must meet all criteria:

• You must provide publicly accessible URLs where the video files can be viewed by judges. We suggest sharing the video via Microsoft OneDrive or other public video hosting platforms.
• You may not edit the video in any way except to trim the beginning and/or ending so the video only includes the pitch or demo itself.
• Each video file must be no larger than 100MB. You may compress each file into a ZIP file for submission.
• Any amount of registered team members may participate in the recorded videos.

Pitch Video: a 3-minute maximum video that records your team pitching your startup as if you were pitching live to judges/investors.

• Your video must simulate the experience of a judge viewing your pitch.
• Place your video camera where a judge might sit and then record your pitch to the camera.

Demo Video: a 2-minute maximum narrated video that records your team showing how someone uses your product. This video should mimic a live demo.

• Follow the steps on How to Build a Demo Video from Microsoft for Startups.

Interactive Prototypes (optional): you are welcome but not required to share interactive, high-fidelity prototypes using a prototyping tool (e.g., Figma, Axure) to show your product’s functionality and the experience the user will have. These prototypes should mimic the functionality and interaction of the product you are demoing and will share during the technical review should you progress to the semifinals.

• Generate a direct link to your prototypes that is publicly available for judges to review. Do not password protect the prototypes and disable any commenting features if possible.
• Figma instructions for how to create direct link to prototypes
• Axure instructions for how to create direct link to prototypes

MVP Round Advancement: Teams in the MVP round will be evaluated by judges using the MVP judging criteria provided in the Official Rules and Regulations. The MVP round will result in a minimum of ten (10) teams that will advance to the Semifinal round.

Navigate to your account page to submit to this round.

Questions? Please refer to our FAQ page.