Last week, we kicked off Inno Madness with 64 companies from across Boston’s tech and innovation ecosystem. Your votes in round one helped us narrow down that list of companies to 32, and voting is already underway in round two. Let’s recap what happened in round one.
Some quick numbers: 1,794 votes were cast in the first round of voting. Wabbi finished well ahead of HYCU Inc., earning more than double the number of votes. Perhaps unsurprisingly due to the pandemic, companies like Armored Things, a crowd intelligence company, and Empida, which built an employee well-being platform, are moving on to the next round. Among this round’s notable upsets, the recently launched startup Significard beat Inari, a biotech company with $352 million in funding. There were some close calls too. AtScale beat out USEFULL by just 12 votes, and DocFox inched ahead of BitSight by 10 votes. In these brackets, every vote matters.
Check out the bracket below to see all the companies that made it to the next round and get voting!
What is Inno Madness?
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 64 innovative, fast-growing local businesses.
The bracket, which BostInno’s editorial team assembled based on nominations submitted by readers in recent weeks, encompasses a broad range of private, venture capital-backed or bootstrapped firms. In some cases, startups in their earliest stages will compete against some established favorites.
Take a look at the participating companies in our bracket and read the contest rules here.
The bracket is meant to represent the full breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In the end, think of the bracket as just a fun look into tech local companies you need to know in 2022. Last year, MineralTree took home the trophy. Other past winners include Berkshire Grey (2020), Toast (2019) and Botkeeper (2018).
Take a look at our voting guide below. Then, scroll down to cast your vote.
When can I vote?
Boston’s Inno Madness includes several stages, as the competition gets narrowed down over the course of several weeks. We’ll keep you posted on who’s advancing, and who’s not, right here on BostInno.com and in the Beat. Subscribe here if you're not already on the list.
Here’s the voting schedule to keep track of each move as voters decide who’s advancing to the next level. Voting will close at 9 a.m. on the final day of each round to give us time to tally the votes before the next round starts.
Round 1: March 3 to 8
Round 2: March 9 to 14
Round 3: March 15 to 18
Round 4: March 19 to 23
Round 5: March 24 to 28
Round 6: March 29 to April 1
2022 Inno Madness Champion announced: April 3
Now, it’s time to get to the voting. Once each round of voting closes, we’ll advance the winners.
Meet this year’s players, which are broken up into four regions. We'll update this list of companies with each round's participants.
Region A
Aqua Security: A cloud native security company.
ZAGENO: A marketplace operator providing supplies to the researcher community.
Stavvy: Stavvy has created a secure platform that simplifies workflows for banks, lenders, servicers and other organizations.
Jobble: A software company that operates a gig marketplace for independent workers.
ApartmentAdvisor: Founded by TripAdvisor and CarGurus alumni to bring transparency to apartment searches.
Wabbi: A cybersecurity company trying to modernize how application security is deployed.
Empida: This company created a well-being platform for building team togetherness, company culture and employee well-being.
Breakout Fun!: A software company that makes educational games and activities for the classroom.
Region B
Klaviyo: A customer data and marketing automation company.
Starburst: Software analytics startup that was the the first tech company from Massachusetts to hit a $1 billion valuation in 2021.
Embark Veterinary: A company offering dog DNA tests that can provide information about a pet’s breed, ancestry, health and more.
Allego: Allego is using its mobile technology to ensure teams can quickly create and share interactive content to train, onboard, coach, etc.
Armored Things: This company provides SaaS solutions for crowd intelligence.
Guidesly Inc.: This company has developed an app providing anglers a real-time booking system for fishing guides.
SplitSpot: A company trying to make the rental process easier through flexible leases, roommate introductions, 3D tours, on-call maintenance, etc.
Significard: This startup offers personalized greeting card subscriptions based on a personality quiz.
Region C
Aura: A digital security company trying to create a safer internet.
AtScale: A computer software company providing business intelligence and data science across all industries.
ChaosSearch: This company has built a platform for cost-effective, highly scalable analytics encompassing full text search, SQL and machine learning capabilities.
Realtime Robotics: This company has created new automation features for robots and autonomous vehicles, including risk-aware driving and automated robot vision that continuously calibrates itself.
Pixability Inc.: A marketing and advertising company that helps brands launch campaigns across YouTube and Connected TV.
Solchroma: This company is building light pollution-free outdoor digital displays.
Smile: This dating app matches users based on their sense of humor.
SimSpace: A cybersecurity risk management company.
Region D
ezCater: Restaurants and caterers use ezCater’s platform to grow and manage their food services.
LinkSquares: This company developed an AI-powered, end-to-end contract lifecycle management platform.
Sea Machines Robotics: This company builds autonomous control and navigation systems for commercial boats and ships.
Allure Security: A computer security company whose technology finds and destroys fake sites, apps and social profiles that lead to identity and payment fraud.
Compt: Compt developed an employee stipend and rewards software that’s customizable to a company's needs, IRS-compliant and capable of supporting global teams.
Paragonix Technologies Inc.: This company makes medical devices that safeguard organs during the journey between donor and recipient.
Wings: This startup is a robotics and AI startup bringing its products to local cannabis dispensaries.
DocFox: DocFox works with financial institutions on advancing document processing with document inspection, data capture and comparison of any document with a suite of automation tools.
