US student entrepreneur Pranjal Sheth was so inspired by his participation in the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition, he's now championing the 2025 edition among American student startups.
There is no mystery behind why the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition attracted over 1,000 submissions across 77 countries in 2023 and is on track to do even better in 2025.
It is due to the sheer passion, hard work, and tenacity from the organisers, partners and competition alumni who act as “ambassadors” in reaching out to the most promising university startups across the world.
One of the competition’s most fervent advocates is Pranjal Sheth – an American citizen based in Houston who graduates from the University of Houston in December 2024 with a business administration degree.
Pranjal participated in the competition in 2023 with his sustainable lithium extraction startup LiQuidium. Today, Pranjal has volunteered to be the driving force behind outreach in North America for the competition’s 2025 edition.
Outreach to American Student Startups
Outside of his studies and his work with LiQuidium, Pranjal (who has received an award and joined the Texas Business Hall of Fame, has received the Global Student Entrepreneurship Award and a Gold US Presidential Service Award) actively reaches out to US universities and institutions across 50 states.
He leverages his connections to seek venues and partners whom the Singapore team can visit during their outreach tour between January and March 2025 to spread the word about the competition and attract startup signups, partners, and investors.
On his motivation, Pranjal, a serial entrepreneur who has nurtured three successful businesses over the last seven years explained:
A lot of successful founders want to give back, and are looking for where they can make the largest impact. With more startups being developed today than 10 years ago my work with the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition is a way to help mentor, develop, and provide resources to new-generation companies coming out of universities.
* Pranjal (2nd from right) and the LiQuidium team with other founders in their hometown Houston, Texas
Pranjal is so passionate about entrepreneurship he is also a member of the Entrepreneur's Organization (EO) – a global community with 220 chapters across 80 countries of entrepreneurs looking to connect and grow together, and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a nonprofit focused on helping develop and incubate entrepreneurs.
The Ultimate Pitch Competition
While Pranjal has participated in over 20 pitch competitions worldwide – mostly in North America but also Singapore, the UAE, and Canada – his experience at the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition was one of the most impactful.
He participated through LiQuidium, the company he co-founded in December 2022 to help extract lithium more sustainably and efficiently.
In the year after the competition, LiQuidium has actively been working towards a pilot facility and has advanced its Technology Readiness Level (TRL) from level 3, to TRL and Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) Level 6. That means that the company’s lithium extraction solution, which is based on a sustainable membrane technology, is nearer to going to market.
Reflecting on the competition, Pranjal said that the prize pool was globally competitive.
In my experience, two of the biggest prize pools when it comes to startup competitions are the Rice Business Plan Competition and the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition.
In 2023, the Singapore-based competition had a prize pool of S$2.5 million.
Mentorship opportunities were priceless.
During the competition, LiQuidium was paired with a mentor from BHP, the world’s largest mining company: Robyn Dittrich, the Vice-President of Global Services, who was then based in Singapore.
“She was a C-suite mentor who gave us great feedback that resulted in our changing many things for the better: From price point to how we sold our solutions,” he said.
It was also one of the only competitions where he got to engage deeply with many startup founders from around the world.
* Pranjal Sheth and Erin Picton, who was from another startup, in Singapore for the Blaze finals week of the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition.
In other competitions, he met fewer than 10 founders who would fly in to pitch and fly out on the same day – leading to transient interactions.
During the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition, 50 finalist teams from around the world met and mingled for over a week and were also treated to tours to understand more about Singapore’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.
It was incredibly valuable being able to interact with other startups from across the world and learn about their markets, to our own benefit.
He shared that while in Singapore, he met an agriculture startup from London. As LiQuidium were looking to expand in London, they learnt a lot about the funding environment, partnerships and English culture.
He said, “Understanding culture is critical; you can’t do business in London the same way you do business in the US. The competition allowed to authentically get a peek into how to do business in different cultures through new friends.”
