St. Cloud Couple Takes Impacks To Minnesota Cup Finals

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- The owners of a St. Cloud-based start-up company are busy polishing up their pitch for the finals of a big statewide competition.

Clare and Brandon Richards launched Impacks back in 2020. Last month, they won the Education & Training division in the annual Minnesota Cup competition. The win comes with a $25,000 prize.

Which will go towards primarily operations within our business.  We are working on updating our e-commerce platform, improving the experience.

All nine divisional winners will now compete for the grand prize on October 6th, which comes with a $50,000 prize. All 90 start-ups that are selected to participate in the program are also assigned two mentors.

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Richards says they'll present in front of a panel of judges on October 6th.

I believe there are over 40 judges.  I am assuming it will be in some sort of auditorium.  We'll have about 12 minutes to pitch, and then it's Q&A. You don't know what they are going to ask; it's all live and in real time, so you have to know your stuff.

After each business presents to the judges, a more public event will be held from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota.

About 3,500 companies applied to the competition this year, with 90 selected to compete, and now they are down to the final nine.

Richards says she has attended the public event for the past few years and has applied to the program three times. This is the first year they have been accepted to compete.

Impacks works with schools across the country to give parents a way to buy school supplies online. They put together kits that are specifically tailored to each classroom's supply list. They also have a donation match program. If parents donate to their school at checkout, Impacks matches a portion of that donation.

Impacks has been doubling in size every year and currently serves over 300 schools across 20 states.