The Minnesota Startup Awards 2020 are officially in the books! Presented by tech.mn and Twin Cities Startup Week, the ceremony saw seven trophy paddles doled out to seven amazing winners, all guided by the one-and-only Nancy Lyons (CEO, Clockwork Design).
A huge thank you to our sponsors (SureSwift Capital, Inc., Flagship Bank, and Great North Labs), Nancy, the judges, and YOU for being an invaluable member of our community. Check out the winners below.
Here’s to 2021!
Minnesota Startup Awards 2020 Winners
Canomiks
“At Canomiks using our Genomics, Bioinformatics, and AI-based Product Superiority Platform we are helping companies in the functional food, beverage, dietary supplement, and skincare industry develop products that are science focused, efficacious and safe. We test quality of individual ingredients before they are made into products by assessing how they affect human genes and thereby human health and wellness. Moreover, we can also design formulations using our proprietary technology, GeneTune. Our solutions help our customers differentiate their product, and mitigate compliance and product development risks. In this process, we ensure consumers get the best quality products as we make our vision of food as medicine a reality.”
Maddy Kennedy
“Maddy Kennedy is the founder of MinneInno, a sister site of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal covering tech, startups and innovation in Minnesota. Working as a one-woman newsroom, Maddy has covered many of the state’s up-and-coming entrepreneurs and shared their stories in a daily newsletter called The Beat.”
BetterYou
“The digital coach helping people make better health and wellness decisions every day.”
SayKid
“SayKid has developed the 1st screen-less, play-based learning platform. Most technology wasn’t designed for early learners – touch interfaces aren’t natural, rigid form factors aren’t playful, and visual content often overstimulates kids rather than engaging them. SayKid combines voice technology and tangible play to help kids learn in a safe, natural, and engaging way – kids play the role teacher.”
Black Tech Talent
“Black Tech Talent aims to increase the representation of Black technologists in both corporate careers and entrepreneurship.
“There are 900,000 unfilled IT positions and of the positions filled only 4-7% go to Black talent. BTT has created strategic partnerships with career coaches, coding and IT bootcamps, corporate clientele and more to implement the much needed pipeline into the industry.”
MN Cup
“MN Cup is a community-led, public-private partnership that brings together corporations, VCs, foundations, government and skilled volunteers to support Minnesota’s entrepreneurs. The core of our programming is an annual competition that reaches emerging entrepreneurs from across the state and connects them with tools, resources and support to launch and accelerate the development of their new ventures. The competition inspires entrepreneurs to begin their startup journey, supports them as they develop a solid business plan, provides exposure for their ideas and offers numerous opportunities to expand their networks.”
Target Accelerators Team
“The retail landscape is experiencing a seismic shift. The old formulas and assumptions just don’t cut it anymore. If we’re going to stay ahead of the curve, we’ll need to think differently.
That’s why we started Target Accelerators. When we combine the passion, vision and agility of entrepreneurs with our network, contacts and infrastructure, anything is possible.
We believe that partnership is how we drive innovation and instigate change. We believe in game-changing ideas, and we believe in the entrepreneurs who dream them.”
