It started with 16 local startups vying for the title of 2023 Inno Madness champion. And after weeks of competition, a winner has emerged.
Let’s face it: Inno Madness is a little bit goofy. We put together a bracket of local startups in head-to-head matchups and then had people vote based on which company they’d most want to invest in. The point was to have some fun and a few laughs in friendly competition while highlighting the Capital Region’s startup scene in a different way.
So, let’s take a moment to recognize the entire field of companies one more time before we crown the winner! The full list is below.
There are a lot of interesting ideas fermenting among these local startups — everything from literally growing new sustainable products to expanding access to mental health care to artificial intelligence that measures tone of voice. We can’t wait to see what bubbles up next.
But, first ... the business at hand: Crowning the inaugural Albany Inno Madness champ.
The final matched two Saratoga startups: No. 16 seed VoyceMe and No. 14 seed Helios Life Enterprises.
Both startups fought to get to the top with upset after upset.
Could VoyceMe sketch out a victory for its next chapter?
Could Helios Life enterprises set the tone for competitions to come with a championship?
And the winner is…
VoyceMe!
The digital comic startup won 65% of the votes in the final to take the title. Congrats to founder Dylan Telano and the entire team there.
And thank you to everyone who took the time to vote in this year’s Albany Inno Madness! Be sure to keep following Albany Inno’s coverage of local startups and the region’s innovation economy. There’s much more to come.
The Albany Inno Madness 2023 field
UCM Digital Health is a telemedicine triage platform meant to keep patients from visiting the ER when it's not necessary.
MyForest Foods, a spinoff of Ecovative, makes a bacon substitute from mycelium, the rootlike structures of mushrooms.
Aptihealth is a behavioral health telemedicine platform that connects patients to psychotherapists.
Inspect Point has created a software platform to help fire protection companies more easily manage building inspections.
KeyCapture Energy develops, constructs, owns and operates large-scale battery systems that store energy created by hydro, wind or other systems.
Velan Studios is a video game developer that has released three titles so far: Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit for Nintendo, Knockout City for EA Games and Hot Wheels: Rift Rally.
Ecovative uses mycelium to develop sustainable replacements for products including packing materials and leather.
Nuvalence focuses on professional services in the cloud computing industry.
Vyv makes an LED light whose very specific wavelength on non-UV light can kill microbes on surfaces.
Levrx has developed a digital platform that shows which medications are covered under a patient’s health plan and which pharmacy sells them for the lowest cost.
Livingston Energy sells custom EV charging stations for electric cars and other vehicles. Each of the stations are connected to the cloud, allowing the company to monitor use of the units and continually push software updates.
Wolfjaw Studios is a contract video game development startup that does a lot of the work to support games with a focus on player experience, such as player accounts, individual user stats and tracking leaderboards.
Rushdown Studios was founded by three PUBG software engineers that set out to form their own studio. It offers mostly contract work for backend systems of online and multiplayer games.
Helios Life Enterprises is an artificial intelligence company. The Saratoga-based company says it tech can analyze and derive meaning from tonal shifts in speech.
Rocket Science, founded by a local video game industry veteran, fulfills development contracts for other video game companies. The company makes pieces of online multiplayer games.
VoyceMe is a platform for digital comics that now has more than 1 million unique monthly users. Authors can share manga – Japanese-style comics – and webtoons, digital comics that originated in South Korea.
