2025 Excelertor & Incubator official rules

• • $70,000 of group stipend will be available to up to eight companies selected to be a part of the program. This stipend availability is based upon achieving certain milestones throughout the program. 
    • Stipends to be paid directly by the participating startup and reimbursed by VentureFuel. These may include: 

      • Production/Lab Time
      • Consumer Research
      • Marketing and Branding
      • Mentor Services
      • Shipping of Samples
    • One participating startup will potentially get automatic acceptance to the 2026 RCM Excelerator

The number of Awards is subject to change at the discretion of the California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB, the “Administrator”), based on the number of applicants, quality of applications received, involvement, and commitment by selected award recipients. All recipients of an Award (each, a “Recipient”) will receive mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs and access to business acceleration and incubation support during the period of the Award. Awards are contingent upon and only issued subject to execution of an Award Agreement in the form provided by the Administrator, which will include, but not be limited to, the following provisions: 

• All Award Recipient(s) must meet the requirements in the Location & Dairy section above. If at any time they fail to meet such requirements, prizes will be rescinded and awarded to the next runner-up at the discretion of the Administrator. 

• The California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB) reserves the right to terminate or rescind any award for behavior that reflects negatively on the CMAB and/or the California dairy farming community, including racist and/or hate speech. 

• The California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB) is an instrumentality of the California Department of Food and Agriculture and is conducting this event to create opportunities for the growth of California fluid milk and dairy products. This contest will be conducted without the use of specific brands or trade names. While applicants may name the product idea or concept, existing brand or trade names are not allowed. 

CONFIDENTIALITY AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 

By submitting an application, the applicant agrees to the terms of the CMAB privacy policy. Access to the applications is granted to the Administrator and its designees (including, but not limited to, the Committee and Finals Judging Panel) for the purposes of review and judging (collectively, the “Reviewing Parties”). The Administrator, for itself and on behalf of the Reviewing Parties, offers and makes no guarantee of confidentiality, either explicit or implicit, in connection with any data or information presented or discussed by applicants, whether in the application or otherwise throughout the Competition. Applicants should confirm with appropriate advisors and legal counsel that any intellectual property described or disclosed in an application is held by the applicant and appropriately protected before the application is submitted, but this does not guarantee nondisclosure by the CMAB if the CMAB is compelled to release documentation of the intellectual property by applicable law. Applicants should mark all trade secrets as “confidential trade secret,” recognizing that this precaution does not guarantee nondisclosure, but rather it assists the CMAB in claiming an exemption from release should the documents be requested via the California Public Records Act. Applicants should be prepared to provide reasonable back-up documentation for these statements, if requested by the Administrator. The authors of each applicant submission will retain all copyrights to the contents of their submission, provided that the Reviewing Parties may make photocopies, photographs, and video and/or audio recordings of any data or information divulged, presented, or discussed by any applicant throughout that applicant’s participation in the Competition. By submitting an application for the Competition, applicants agree to and hereby grant a license to the Administrator and the Reviewing Parties to use and reproduce such materials without restriction and without compensation and to conduct such due diligence as the Reviewing Parties determine is necessary or desirable for purposes of evaluating the application and carrying out the Competition as described herein. In addition, applicant agrees, for itself and each of its principals and officers, that the Administrator and its assigns will have the perpetual right to publicly post and reproduce certain information about the cohort and winners of Awards, including, but not limited to names of participating individuals, photographs, videos, category of business, logo and other marks, and an abstract (collectively, “Materials”) on the public areas of the Reviewing Parties’ websites, media sites and through other means, all without compensation. The Administrator and its assigns will also have the perpetual right to use the Materials for research, educational, advertising, promotional, not-for-profit and other similar purposes.