Startup competition Minnesota Cup announces finalists

The Minnesota Cup, an annual startup competition hosted by the University of Minnesota, has announced 27 finalists in nine categories.

Division winners will be announced in early September, while the overall competition winner will be named as part of a virtual event on September 22. Division winners will all receive $30,000, while the overall winner receives an additional $50,000.

RELATED: Register for the virtual Minnesota Cup here.

The Minnesota Cup is the state's largest startup competition. Past winners include biotech company Stemonix Inc., which announced Monday that it had become the majority shareholder of a public company as part of a merger, and internet of things company 75F Inc., which raised $18 million in 2019.

Jessica Berg, the director of the Minnesota Cup, said that every step of competition was shadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic; applications for the contest opened on March 16, just when the country was starting to enter a lockdown. Despite that, the number of applicants was still up slightly over 2019.

"It's been really exciting and we're proud to just be able to continue the competition at all," she said.

Applicants focused on a broad range of real-world problems as opposed to businesses problems, more so than in previous years, Berg said.

The impact ventures startups, for example, include a company working to make teachers more diverse, a company working to increase food access in rural and native communities and a business working on new approaches to bail. Meanwhile, startups outside of that category are focused on sustainability or support health and safety.

The finalists for the 2020 Minnesota Cup are:

Education and Training:

Energy/Cleantech/Water:

Food/Ag/Beverage:

General:

High Tech:

Impact Ventures:

Lifescience/Health IT:

Student:

Youth: