The votes are in and we're one step closer to finding our Tech Madness winner.
What's Tech Madness you ask? It’s our reader-driven bracket competition in the spirit of March Bracket Tournament highlighting some of the local startup scene’s biggest, brightest and most exciting technology companies.
During the month of March, 32 Atlanta-based startups will go head-to-head in the bracket and readers like you will decide who goes on to the next round.
After more than 4,000 votes from readers, we've got the results of Round 1 and there were a lot of close calls (You can vote in Round 2 here).
It was certainly the round of the underdog, with a majority of lower seed startups overcoming their higher seed competitors.
Our biggest upset was seed 8 startup DataSeers beating out seed 1 startup Cognosos by five votes.
There were several close calls throughout the round: Curricula came in clutch with just three votes more than Sequr; PadSplit gained the W over elves with an 18 vote difference.
Our top vote receivers were OnPay, with 228 votes, RoadSync, with 215 votes, and Layr at 169 votes.
Now, let's look up at the matchups for Round 2 --- the Last Sixteen.
PadSplit is up against returning Tech Madness runner-up OnPay. Curricula, a security awareness training and phishing simulation platform, will go head-to-head with Worthix, a self-adaptive survey that uses AI technology. Greenzie, a robotic lawncare startup that recently raised $750,000, and BoxLock, a startup that provides smart padlock devices for home deliveries to thwart porch pirates that just raised $4.5 million from investors, will face off in the Atlanta Hawks division. We've got three seed 1 startups left from Round 1, so it will be interesting to see if we'll continue to see a trend of underdogs taking the win.
To determine the outcome of each matchup, ask yourselves this question: Who would you invest in?
This can be interpreted a number of different ways. Is this about which startup could deliver the highest return? Who you think is the safest bet? Or is it about supporting a project or mission you’re passionate about? How ever you want to interpret that question is up to you. That’s Tech Madness! (And keep in mind that this isn’t a ‘versus’ thing. Just identify who you’re bullish on and pick away. A vote for one company is not a vote against another. But Tech Madness is a friendly competition and one must move on.)
The matchups are (for the most part) random. All startups on the list are private startups, most of which are venture-backed and tech-enabled. We seeded the companies based on venture capital funding and other growth metrics. Seeding isn’t an editorial judgment. We rely on venture funding because it’s the most accessible and universal metric available.
The second round ends on Wednesday, March 18, and you can view the whole Tech Madness schedule below…
- Round 1 voting March 6 – March 12.
- Round 2 (Last Sixteen) voting March 13 – March 18.
- Round 3 (Quarter Finals) voting March 19 – March 23.
- Round 4 (Semi Finals) voting March 24 – March 26.
- Round 5 (Finals) voting March 27 – March 30.
- Announce the 2020 Tech Madness Champion on Tuesday, March 31.
Vote for your second-round picks below and be sure to share the bracket with friends and colleagues.
