The first round of Albany Inno Madness was all chalk. The second round was all chaos. And the third round? All upsets.
No. 3 MyForest Foods looked like the favorite as the highest remaining seed. But it got served an (m)BLT by No. 7 Nuvalence — (mushroom) Bacon, Lettuce and better luck next Time.
In the other matchup, No. 5 Inspect Point was left examining what went wrong after No. 8 UCM Digital Health yelled "Clear!" and shocked everyone with a commanding 72% of the votes.
So now Nuvalence and UCM Digital Health — the No. 7 and 8 seeds — face off in the final. Madness, indeed.
Check out the bracket below to see how we got here — and vote now. The final round voting will be open through March 30 at noon. We'll announce the winner on March 31.
There are short descriptions of the two finalists below and read the contest rules here.
Click here to make your picks now!
Meet the companies still in the challenge
Nuvalence focuses on professional services in the cloud computing industry and plans to expand into three new offices and two new cities.
UCM Digital Health is a medical triage telemedicine platform meant to keep patients from visiting the ER when it's not necessary.
Inno Madness?
Albany Inno Madness is a friendly, bracket-style challenge in which readers vote to advance companies based on one question: Who would you invest in?
The bracket is assembled based on reader nominations, as well as editorial input from the Albany Inno team. Seeding was determined in an order based roughly on the amount of funding each startup has raised.
The goal of Inno Madness is to provide a snapshot of some of the most promising tech companies in the Capital Region. It is by no means a complete list of the Albany region's best startups. Think of it as a fun way of shining a spotlight on some companies on the rise.
Read contest rules here
