April 7 update: After five rounds and thousands of votes, Babson Diagnostics emerged as champion in the 2023 Inno Madness championship and Grazzy finished as runner-up. To read more, go here.
March 30 update: The stage is set for a championship showdown in the 2023 Austin Inno Madness bracket competition.
After four rounds of voting and thousands of votes cast, blood-testing startup Babson Diagnostics emerged from its side of the bracket after topping e-commerce startup Cart.com. Meanwhile, Grazzy, which has a hospitality payments platform, narrowly topped founder networking startup Humblebrag.
For Grazzy, it's been a bit of a Cinderella story. The relatively new startup came into the field of 32 Austin-area companies with the No. 14 seed, which was based largely on reported funding and other traction points. Babson Diagnostics, meanwhile, came into the bracket as the No. 4 seed overall.
This sets us up for the championship round of voting, which will run through Tuesday, April 4. See the bracket below and click to cast a vote for the company you'd most want to invest in.
March 24 update: We started with 32 intriguing Austin-area startups in this year's Inno Madness bracket. Now we're down to just four.
Over the past few days, Inno readers cast 900 votes in the third round of voting. And, once again, there were some neck-and-neck contests.
Hospitality payments platform Grazzy, for example, edged out employee engagement platform Swoovy with 51% of the clicks, or fewer than 20 votes.
Meanwhile, Babson Diagnostics, a local blood-testing company, rallied to outpace Gigaroo, a service industry app that matches gig seekers with employers according to their lifestyle and needs, with 52% of the vote.
With slightly more breathing room, e-commerce platform Cart.com overcame MeBeBot Inc., which has an AI assistant for the HR industry and has made several strong runs in past Inno Madness competitions. And Humblebrag, a local startup that helps founders mobilize their company's networks, raced by one of Austin's fastest-growing startups, Jasper, which uses generative AI to help content creators and marketers write faster.
Now we head into the fourth round of voting, which will run through March 28.
March 20 update: Inno Madness voters have spoken, advancing eight local startups to the next round in the 2023 bracket.
The latest round in the friendly competition featured several very close contests, including a matchup between Jasper AI and Aquifer Motion that was a percentage tie if you use traditional rounding methods. In the end, Jasper emerged with eight more votes, or 50.3% of the total.
There were 888 votes cast this round, and there were two matchups that ended with 51-to-49 margins. Blood-testing startup Babson Diagnostics just barely edged out Tiny Health, a startup with gut health tests for expecting parents and infants.
Meanwhile, Humblebrag topped Crave Retail by only 10 votes. And MeBeBot scrapped by Howdy with 52% of the vote.
Now we head into the third round of voting. Cast your vote below. Voting in this round will close at midnight Wednesday, March 22.
March 14 update: Austin Inno readers over the past several days have voted to advance 16 startups from the initial field of 32 innovative companies. Nearly all of the matchups were close, with several being decided by fewer than 100 votes.
For example, Grazzy, an Austin startup with a platform for digital tipping, instant tip-outs and other banking solutions, just barely edged out Zenus, which has an ethical facial analysis platform, by 11 votes.
Anode Labs, which has developed a virtual power plant that aims to support a full power grid that lets consumers with home batteries get rewards, narrowly topped 3D animation startup Aquifer Motion.
Other matchups were a bit more decisive, though still pretty close. One example: Humblebrag, an Austin startup that helps founders discover more value from their networks, topped TAU Systems, which has intriguing laser accelerator technologies, with nearly 60% of readers' votes.
Alright, it's time to start voting in Round 2 of Austin Inno Madness.
Original story
Our Austin Inno Madness competition is here. We've got 32 local startups vying for the coveted title of 2023 Inno Madness champion.
Inno Madness is our friendly, bracket-style challenge where readers vote to advance companies based on one question: Who would you invest in? Whether you believe in one mission or product slightly over the other or would prefer to back a more established company versus an early-stage startup, how you answer that question is entirely up to you. The bracket is designed to shine a spotlight on 32 innovative, fast-growing local businesses.
The bracket is assembled based on reader nominations, as well as editorial input from the Austin Inno team. Seeding was determined largely by funding raised. Meet the participants below and read the contest rules here.
The goal of Inno Madness is to give a snapshot of some of the most promising tech companies in Austin. It is by no means an exhaustive list of Austin's newsworthy startups — the local tech scene is simply too robust for that. It's also not just a list of the 32 best-funded startups in the region.
Instead, the bracket is meant to represent the full breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In the end, think of the bracket as a fun look into local tech companies you need to know about in 2023. You can find even more of them in our 2023 Startups to Watch list.
First-round voting started March 9 and ended March 12. Readers can cast one vote per round. We'll open up voting round by round, ultimately crowning an Inno Madness winner on April 7.
Meet the Players:
