The Twin Cities is Building the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs – One Pitch at a Time

If you want to understand where Minnesota’s next wave of founders is coming from, don’t start in a boardroom, start in a classroom. This fall, I found myself inside two very different campus pitch rooms, and they both told the same story: student entrepreneurship in Minnesota isn’t just alive, it’s accelerating. 

In November, I sat on an investor panel for the University of St. Thomas’s Entrepreneurship Capstone class, providing mid-semester feedback to students refining their startup ideas. A few weeks later, I was back in a judge’s seat at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for its 36th annual BizPitch competition, deliberating with four other judges to crown the winner out of eight student finalists. 

Across both campuses, it was clear that students aren’t treating entrepreneurship as a hypothetical exercise, they’re treating it as a real career path. 

University of St. Thomas’s momentum

St. Thomas’s Schulze School of Entrepreneurship recently jumped to #11 globally in Princeton Review’s undergraduate entrepreneurship rankings, up eight spots from last year and now #5 in the Midwest. The school isn’t just teaching entrepreneurship as a major, it’s embedded the entrepreneurial mindset across the entire university. Last year, students from 85 different majors took entrepreneurship courses, and the school awarded over $2.69 million in scholarships and grants to entrepreneurship undergrads, plus $448,000 in cash prizes through competitions. 

The opportunity to sit on the investor panel came through Professor Jack Dempsey, a well-respected mentor in the local VC ecosystem, operating partner at Norwest Equity Partners, and long-time Techstars mentor. Jack models the kind of cross-campus, cross-industry mentorship that has become a staple of the Minnesota startup community. I joined another mentor of mine, HT Fish, in providing feedback to student teams building across categories like AI-enabled traffic systems, party vendor marketplaces, and software connecting deeptech founders with non-dilutive grant opportunities. 

What stood out immediately was their depth of customer discovery. Each team had met with at least 20 potential customers or industry experts, and they referenced these conversations naturally and confidently. This level of rigor isn’t typical for undergraduate entrepreneurship programs and signals a real shift in how students approach problem validation and business design. 

The students also welcomed tough feedback. They asked pointed questions, followed up afterward, and many scheduled additional meetings to talk about pathways into venture capital postgrad or to refine their concepts. 

St. Thomas also maintains a strong partnership with startup accelerator gener8tor through gBETA St. Thomas, focused on current student and alumni founders. I make a point to meet with each cohort because St. Thomas keeps producing founders who are prepared to build. 

The University of Minnesota’s 36th annual BizPitch

The BizPitch competition at the University of Minnesota has become a proving ground for student entrepreneurs since its inception in 1989. As a Minnesota alum, I’d attended the event as a student but never had the confidence or idea to compete myself. Coming back as a judge was entirely different. Seeing the confidence and clarity of today’s student founders compared to even a few years ago highlights how rapidly student entrepreneurship is maturing. 

The competition drew eight finalists from across all eight UMN campuses, including business, agriculture, design, engineering, liberal arts, biology, and education. It was a great reminder that entrepreneurship in Minnesota isn’t confined to the business or engineering schools. 

Each student had 90 seconds to pitch in front of a full room of peers and judges representing investors, founders, and operators. Ideas ranged from:

- High-protein tilapia chips

- AI voice agents for towing dispatch

- A discreet wearable device for menstrual pain relief

- A peer-to-peer marketplace for college campuses

- Browser extension automating student study schedules

Lucas Miller from Carlson (the business school) took home the $2,000 grant prize for Fisks Protein Chips, while Warm Wave (menstrual wearable device) won Most Innovative and Campus Concierge (college peer marketplace) earned Most Social Impact. 

The BizPitch alumni list proves the event’s significance. Companies like Smackin’ Sunflower Seeds and Swannies Golf have gone on to exceed $20 million in revenue just a few years after early-stage campus pitches. The competition is organized by the Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship, led by John Stavig and Morgan Kerfeld, and hosted in the Toaster Innovation Hub, a vibrant, student-run maker and entrepreneurship center on campus. 

Student capital backing student vision 

Perhaps the most innovative development in the Twin Cities student entrepreneurship and investor scene is Atland Ventures: an early-stage VC firm that’s entirely student-owned and operated by University of Minnesota undergraduates. 

Being part of Atland during college shaped my own career path, and today its momentum has only grown. 

Unlike traditional student investment clubs, Atland operates as an independent LLC where students make real investment decisions with real capital they’ve raised from LPs. Last year, they closed their second fund at over $1 million, bringing their total assets under management to more than $2 million. They invest in pre-seed and seed-stage companies solving problems felt by Gen Z, leveraging the unique perspective that comes from being digital natives. 

‍

Entrepreneurship education teaches students that they don’t have to wait for permission to build something meaningful. It’s reshaping how young people see their careers, their agency, and their ability to solve real problems. 

‍

What makes Atland truly special is the autonomy. These students are sourcing companies, conducting due diligence, managing relationships with limited partners, and even throwing a biannual summit at which they had over 100 attendees in November.  Students also get carried interest in the investments they make. It’s real venture capital run by students. 

A few of the current Atland members also recently launched the Zero to One Startup Club, a club that includes an intensive three-week student-run startup accelerator aiming to position the University of Minnesota as one of the best entrepreneurship schools in the country. 

Expanding beyond the big two 

While St. Thomas and the University of Minnesota have led much of the momentum, other Twin Cities schools are rapidly expanding their entrepreneurial offerings. 

Macalester College has developed a comprehensive suite of programs including MacNest (a 10-week startup internship program), MacStartups (a summer accelerator), and Macathon (a 24-hour innovation challenge). The college’s Idea Lab provides 7,000 square feet of collaborative space for students to experiment and build. 

Gustavus Adolphus and St. Olaf are also investing more heavily in entrepreneurship experiences, competitions, and innovation programming, making them colleges to watch over the next few years. 

Wrapping up

The rise of student entrepreneurship programs in the Twin Cities and across Minnesota isn’t just about creating more startups (though that’s certainly happening). It’s reshaping how young people see their careers, their agency, and their ability to solve real problems. 

Traditional career paths offer stability, but they can limit creativity and ownership. Entrepreneurship education teaches students that they don’t have to wait for permission to build something meaningful. Whether they start companies, join early-stage teams, or bring entrepreneurial thinking to established organizations, these students are learning to be creators rather than just consumers of opportunities. 

Sitting in the judge’s chair at BizPitch, watching students pitch solutions ranging from sustainable protein sources to healthtech concepts with conviction and clarity, I was reminded why I got involved in the early-stage startup ecosystem in the first place. These are real founders taking their first steps, supported by an ecosystem that’s mature enough to offer meaningful feedback but young enough to encourage bold experimentation. 

The Twin Cities has always punched above its weight in entrepreneurship, producing companies like Best Buy, Target, and Medtronic. The student entrepreneurship programs emerging across local campuses suggest this tradition isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it’s accelerating, one pitch competition at a time.

‍

Elise Riniker is an Associate at Mairs and Power Venture Capital in St. Paul, a firm which focuses its investments on businesses in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, and has previously worked at Techstars and Bread & Butter Ventures.