MN Cup Winners 2007



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MINNESOTA’S MOST INNOVATIVE BUSINESS IDEAS NAMED

Muve, Inc., winner of the 3rd Annual Minnesota Cup, to receive $25,000 in seed capital

takes $5,000 student entrepreneur prize

(Minneapolis) Sept. 7, 2007 – Last night, a company poised to help cure the global obesity epidemic was named “Minnesota’s Top Breakthrough Business Idea” and honored for its innovative concepts. Area business and educational leaders named Muve, Inc. the 3rd Annual Minnesota Cup winner and awarded it a $25,000 prize.

“We are so grateful to everyone involved in the Minnesota Cup program for choosing Muve as this year’s top breakthrough business idea,” says John Montague, founder of Muve. “Throughout the competition we have been fortunate enough to meet so many influential business leaders and showcase the Muve concept in front of an exceptional panel of judges. We’re looking forward to capitalizing on this opportunity and taking Muve to the next level in ending obesity.”

Launched in March 2005, the Minnesota Cup is a statewide contest that seeks out, supports and promotes Minnesota’s newest and most innovative business concepts. The program calls on inventors, business owners and members of the public across the state to submit a breakthrough business idea at .

This year’s overall and student winners rose to the top in a group of more than 500 entrants. Four other open division finalists, along with two other student finalists, gathered last night in front of many of Minnesota’s finest and brightest business leaders at the University of Minnesota’s McNamara Alumni Center to share their breakthrough business ideas. At the ceremony, was named the student category winner for creating an online service that will facilitate the graduate school application process. The student award, added last year, unearths and recognizes the business brains of the future at Minnesota colleges and universities.

“It’s really exciting to see the program grow from year to year,” said Scott Litman, Minnesota Cup co-chairman. “The quality of the business plans that we received this year is impressive and we are thrilled to have Muve as the overall winner. We’re already thinking about the 2008 competition – how to get the word out to more entrepreneurs and how to evolve the prize package to create more value for more entrepreneurs.”

Prize/Contest Details

Muve receives the 3rd Annual Minnesota Cup, $25,000 in seed capital, consulting by Wells Fargo and professionals from area law firms, accounting firms, PR & marketing, business organization services from the Maslon law firm, one year of access to “HillSearch” from the James J. Hill Reference Library, the opportunity to present to more than 50 angel investors at the Early Stage Investor Network, a scholarship to attend the upcoming Minnesota Venture Finance Conference, a national news story over the ARA Content Network and they will be presenters at the first ever IQ Corridor Investor Symposium that brings investors from Minnesota & Wisconsin together to meet leading entrepreneurs from the region.

The second-place winner, It’sFresh!, receives $5,000. The third-place winner, Persata, receives $2,500. The second and third place winners also will receive business support services from contest sponsors. The student winner, , will receive $5,000.

Minnesota Cup organizers include area business leaders, the University of Minnesota and Wells Fargo. In June, judges selected 30 semi-finalists, who were asked to develop a more comprehensive business proposal. From those proposals, judges selected five finalists. Full finalist summaries are available below.

One of the contest’s core objectives is to connect entrants with leaders in Minnesota’s business and investor community. To that end, a board of notable regional investors, entrepreneurs and “C-level” executives has been assembled to judge contest submissions. This year’s judges include:

• Joseph Alexander, Senior Partner, Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand, LLP

• Dave Cleveland, Co-founder, Riverside Bank

• Leslie Frecon, CEO, LFE Capital

• Morris Goodwin, President and COO, The Hogan Company

• Skip Gage, Chairman and CEO, Gage Marketing

• Michael Gorman, Managing Director, Split Rock Partners

• Sima Griffith, Founder, Aethlon Capital

• Fred Haberman, Founder and CEO, Haberman & Associates

• Joel Lebewitz, Partner, Lurie Besikof Lapidus and Company

• Brad Lehman, Managing General Partner, Portage Equity Investments II, LP

• Joy Lindsay, President and Co-Founder StarTec Investments, LLC

• Scott Litman (Co-chair), Managing Director, SDWA Ventures, LLC

• Dan Mallin (Co-chair), Managing Director, SDWA Ventures, LLC

• Mike Moore, Director William C. Norris Institute

• Jay Novak, Editor, Twin Cities Business

• Debra Paterson, President, Metro Minnesota Region, Wells Fargo

• Sam Richter, President, James J. Hill Reference Library

• Thom Sandberg, Founder, The Kenyon Consortium

• John Stavig, Carlson School of Management, Director, Entrepreneurial Studies

• Dale Wahlstrom, Chair, The BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota

• Jessica Zeaske, Associate Director, Venture Center, University of Minnesota

• Art Fry, Inventor of Post-It Notes, 3M

Judging Criteria for Entrants

Entries were judged on the following criteria:

• Originality: Is this idea truly new or is it a tweaking of something that is already in existence? An idea can be for a product or service and can be an entirely new idea or the evolution of a previous idea. Ideas that show the greatest innovation were viewed more favorably.

• Viability: Can this idea be commercialized within two years? Can this idea create or serve a market need? What is the entrant’s strategy for turning the idea into a high-growth business? Judges evaluated ideas on their potential to generate revenue, profits and employment.

• Quality of Presentation: As the contest progressed through each round, more emphasis was placed on an entrant’s quality of presentation.

3rd Annual Minnesota Cup Winners and Finalists

Winner: Muve, Inc.

Based on a groundbreaking research study on obesity from The Mayo Clinic, John Montague and Dr. James Levine of Muve, Inc. are prepared to commercialize products and services to cure the global obesity epidemic. Those products include a mobile, wearable device used to track body movement and convert the data to calories and energy burned, a software application used to synchronize body movement data with a computer and an online network focused on wellness and weight loss.

Runners-Up

2nd Place: It’sFresh! Food Freshness Solutions

Greg Pavett, Carrie Lura, Nancy Shea and Craig Copping work to deliver comprehensive solutions focused on food freshness designed to increase consumer satisfaction, taste and quality, through simple, easy-to-use solutions. Technologies include a device used to maintain food temperatures throughout the cold food distribution chain and a tool designed to indicate food freshness levels from within the food’s packaging.

3rd Place: Persata

Like Wikipedia, Persata is a free-flowing community of users who build “Crowds” around specific topics and collect quantitative information, as opposed to writing articles or blogs, in order to build a mini, topic-specific database on the fly. Each topical database rolls up to form the Internet’s first public data mining engine that utilizes not just social networking, but rather, “Social Intelligence.” Creators Michael Noble and David Padgett hope Persata will become a “living, breathing census” and change the current methods of both searching the Internet for information as well as gathering and disseminating research data for third party firms.

Other Minnesota Cup Finalists

Reshare

Adam Southam and Kevin Kruse, of Reshare, founded the leading Distribution Relationship Management (DRM) software and strategy company with the only patented channel management solution that enables manufacturers and brand owners to sell online directly to end users without circumventing valuable channel partners. Reshare offers software and strategies that resolve channel conflict, guarantee complete brand control and enhance relationships between all channel partners and end users, translating into increased revenue, market share and profitability.

Snap Pea™

Michelle Gobrecht and Carie Mathison created Snap Pea pick-up sites, which provide same-day delivery of a made from scratch, customized and freshly assembled meal to corporate office complexes. The Snap Pea store and the Snap Pea custom pick-up sites are unique concepts that meet consumers’ more sophisticated tastes and ongoing demands for convenience, while optimizing fixed expenses and the ability to lock out competition.

Student Winner:

uTead, derived from universal Tool for education advancement, is an online service that will facilitate the graduate school application process on a global scale. Launching this September, uTead provides a network connecting prospective students with applications and related resources. Erik Eliason and Naiomi Bisram, both seniors in the Entrepreneurship program at the U of M Carlson School co-founded the site.

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Media Contact: Kim McMartin, Haberman & Associates, 612-372-6464, kim@

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