Cupid’s Cup spreads the love to more East Coast colleges

Kevin Plank’s annual entrepreneurship competition is inching ever further from its Terrapin shell.

For 2016, Cupid’s Cup is partnering with entrepreneurship centers and business schools at more than 20 universities, including Johns Hopkins.
In past events, the competition focused solely on the University of Maryland’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. Now, the school is partnering with programs at more colleges to increase outreach and networking. The additional universities include East Coast schools such as Temple, Harvard, Duke, Georgetown, Penn, Virginia, Boston College and Babson.
It’s the next step for a competition that has slowly opened its doors to schools beyond Maryland’s borders. The 2015 winner was Scholly, whose founder, Chris Gray, recently graduated from Philadelphia’s Drexel University. The 2014 winner hailed from MIT.
Students or alums under 30 from any accredited university are still invited to apply, provided they are “young entrepreneurs running legal business entities with revenue or proven traction,” according to the application.
And the main events will still be held in Maryland. Under Armour’s Baltimore headquarters hosts the Feb. 19 semifinals, and the winner will be crowned April 7 at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park.
Apply by Jan. 5
For the first 10 years, the Under Armour founder limited the pitch competition to his alma mater and the origin of his entrepreneurial energy. Now Plank says he is “excited to expand the Cupid’s Cup competition to include some of the world’s best thinkers and to provide even more resources to help the next generation of leaders reach their potential.”
Named in homage to Plank’s first College Park flower delivery business, Cupid’s Valentine Rose Delivery, the competition offers a total of $100,000 in prizes, as well as access to Plank’s business network.