Minnesota Cup Begins 10th Season

As a friendly notice to all of our aspiring entrepreneur readers, the Minnesota Cup recently kicked off its tenth season. If you don’t know, the Minnesota Cup is a statewide business plan competition for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Gray Plant Mooty has been a long-time sponsor of the Minnesota Cup (and the high tech division). We have posted about the competition many times over the past few years, including here, here and here.  

The Minnesota Cup added a new division to its format this year (food/beverage/agriculture) to go along with the other six division categories from last year – energy/clean tech/water, general, high tech, life science/health IT, social and student. Each division will produce one winner, who then will compete for the overall grand prize awarded on September 10th (hopefully after a nice warm summer to reward us all for the Polar Vortexes we endured this winter). Each division finalist and runner-up will be awarded cash prizes, and the grand prize winner will receive $50,000 in seed money. You can visit the Minnesota Cup's website for additional details and information about the competition.

In addition to the prize money awarded to winners of the competition, there are many good reasons for entering the Minnesota Cup. 

• Participants will have access to several programs throughout the year regarding various areas of business development (marketing, raising capital, accounting, legal, etc.).  

• There are many good opportunities in the program to network with other entrepreneurs and those who serve the entrepreneurial community (investors, advisors, lawyers, accountants, etc.).  

• Semi-finalists are also assigned mentors who can help with the development of their business plan. Just participating in the Minnesota Cup will create great impetus for you to refine your business plan and move to the next phase of development.

The fact that finalists from the last 5 years have raised nearly $75 million in financing is one measure of the impact that the Minnesota Cup has had on its participants. 

Best of luck to this year’s participants, especially those who are regular readers of entreVIEW!