Scholly, a startup that developed an application to help students find college scholarships has won the 2015 Cupid's Cup Business Competition hosted by the University of Maryland's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. Scholly was chosen out of nearly 200 original contestants, earning $75,000 in cash. Drexel University student and Scholly founder Christopher Gray also won a host of services and mentorship perks from the business leaders who organized and judged the competition including Under Armour CEO and UMD alumnus Kevin Plank, who chaired the competition.
Plank judged the six finalists with Karen Katz, the CEO of Neiman Marcus Group, Mike Lee, co-founder of fitness platform MyFitnessPal and Daymond John, founder of FUBU and a judge on ABC's Shark Tank. Those six had been narrowed down from 12 semifinalists who presented at Under Armour's headquarters on March 10.
In second place, GudNeSs Bar, a startup out of Duke University School of Medicine that produces a nutrition bar to help fight anemia in India won $20,000 while the $5,000 third place prize went to Cornell University's SnappyScreen and its touchless sunscreen application system. The $5,000 audience choice award went to local favorite Gym Supreme, the startup behind the Mega Bar home gym started by UMD students and picked by the close to 1,000 people in the audience via a text vote.
