MN Cup winners

BKB Floral Foam Wins MN Cup Grand Prize

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Minnesota Cup, the country’s largest statewide startup competition, crowned BKB Floral Foam as the 2022 Grand Prize Winner and celebrated the outstanding work of top startups across Minnesota at its annual Final Awards Showcase.

This year marked the largest and most diverse field in the competition’s 18-year history with 2,595 total participants, of which 47% were female and 40% were entrepreneurs of color. Throughout the monthslong event, emerging entrepreneurs received mentorship, educational workshops, networking connections, and potential seed funding to help launch and accelerate their new ventures. 

Monday night, BKB Floral Foam, a startup focused on creating compostable floral foam bricks, took home an additional $50,000 in funding. The Grand Prize Review Board selected the winner out of the nine divisional winners.

Co-founder and CEO Dundee Butcher worked for years at one of London's leading, internationally renowned florists. It was while she worked as a florist that she had the idea to develop a floral foam that was compostable instead of thrown away.

"Right now, it's such perfect timing with climate change being such a big issue," Butcher said. "The whole reason I wanted to start this was because of the environment. I'm a mother of four and a grandmother of two, and you start to think about these things and what the world will look like for the next generation."

MN Cup’s top 18 competitors also presented pitches in front of hundreds of audience members, who could vote for their favorite. Throughout the evening, entrepreneurs received more than $400,000 in cash prizes. 

“To see the dedication and ingenuity from our MN Cup entrepreneurs year after year is astounding,” said John Stavig, co-director of MN Cup. “We’re thankful for all of the volunteer mentors, judges, and sponsors that enable MN Cup to support emerging entrepreneurs across  our state and foster their next great business ideas.”

Since 2005 MN Cup has given away more than $5 million in seed capital, taking no equity in exchange. MN Cup alumni companies have gone on to raise over $1 billion. MN Cup is a program of the Carlson School’s Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship. 

2022 MN Cup Divisional Winners

Education & Training

Energy/Cleantech/Water

  • WINNER: BKB Floral Foam
  • RUNNER-UP: Eco Smart Construction Stud

Food/Ag/Beverage

General

High Tech

Impact Ventures

Life Science/Health IT

Student

  • WINNER: Refr Sports
  • RUNNER-UP: Theodora

Youth

MN Cup receives generous support from the following sponsors: Carlson Family Foundation, Cleveland Family Endowment, General Mills, Xcel Energy, 3M, UnitedHealth Group, ECMC Group, Edmentum, Best Buy Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, and the University of Minnesota.