Each year, Inno Madness (formerly known as Tech Madness) pits some of the area’s most innovative companies against each other in a bracket-style voting challenge. Readers vote to advance companies based on who they would invest in, and after several weeks, we crown the Inno Madness champion.
The participants range in size from bootstrapped startups to companies with a couple rounds of venture capital. They span industries from fintech and software to transportation and consumer goods. But each winner has one thing in common: They’ve captured the attention of thousands of BostInno readers.
Today, we’re going to take a look back at the past Inno Madness champions and see where they are now. Did these companies live up the hype they generated during Inno Madness?
2021 Champion: MineralTree
MineralTree Inc. was founded in 2010 to automate financial processes. The company’s accounts payable automation tools are its bread and butter and help companies across all industries pay each other. MineralTree has more than $100M in funding and acquired Regal Software and Inspyrus in 2020.
In the months after Inno Madness last year, MineralTree continued its global expansion. The Boston-based company named Ram Purohit as managing director and head of engineering for its team in India to expand its software engineering operations in Bangalore.
In September 2021, the payment technology and software company Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN) purchased MineralTree from an investor group led by Great Hill Partners, .406 Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures. Global Payments made the acquisition for $500 million in cash. MineralTree continues to operate as a Global Payments company.
2020 Champion: Berkshire Grey
Robotics company Berkshire Grey is known for its robotic picking and sorting solutions that are being used in warehouses, distribution centers and other industrial environments.
After its Inno Madness victory in early 2020, the Bedford-based company made a slew of appointments to its executive leadership team. Berkshire Grey brought on a chief marketing officer and several general managers. Most notably, the company created the chief financial officer role and brought in Mark Fidler, former CFO of NEC Energy Solutions, to fill it.
In early 2021, Berkshire Grey entered into an agreement with Revolution Acceleration Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: RAAC), a special purpose acquisition company, to create a publicly listed robotics and automation company. Berkshire Grey predicted a post-transaction equity value of up to $2.7 billion.
Berkshire Grey is now trading under the Nasdaq ticker BGRY and is still led by CEO Tom Wagner.
2019 Champion: Toast
Boston-based Toast Inc. has seen highs and lows in the last few years as the pandemic took a toll on the food service industry.
In February 2020, the restaurant technology company raised $400 million in Series F funding, bringing its valuation to $4.9 billion. Just a few months later, the company had cut its staff by roughly 50%, citing a halt in sales due to the pandemic. As restaurant service remained limited, Toast worked with the Kendall Square Association to develop a new B2B service called Toast Drop. The service allowed Kendall Square employers to order individually packaged, customized meals for their employees from local restaurants.
The company eventually began to rebound, reporting a 24% year-over-year revenue increase in 2020.
Toast filed to go public in August and raised $870 million in its initial public offering the next month. Despite the shaky start to 2020, Toast ended up with one of the largest IPOs in 2021.
Toast was also the 2017 Tech Madness Champion.
2018 Champion: Botkeeper
This Boston-based company combines machine learning, artificial intelligence and accounting practices into an automated bookkeeping tool for accounting professionals.
While Botkeeper is the only champion on this list yet to become a public company, it has been consistently raising funds since 2018. Botkeeper closed a $18 million Series A led by Greycroft in late 2018, a $25 million Series B in 2020 and a $42 million Series C in late 2021. With this most recent funding, the company planned to double its engineering team.
Botkeeper, which sells its software to accounting firms, signed the first 10 firms onto its platform in 2019 and added about 40 new firms in 2020. As of late 2021, the company was serving about 200, according to CEO Enrico Palmerino.
