What started as a wide-open field of 64 competitors has been narrowed to just four. Before we see the semi-final matchups, let’s see how the last round shook out.
Autonomous tech company Realtime Robotics had the closest competition this round and ended up beating AtScale, a computer software company, by 15 votes.
More than 3,100 votes were cast in this round, and DocFox won the most reader votes with 1,618. It was enough to beat out medical device company Paragonix Technologies Inc. for a spot in the semi finals.
And some bad news for dog lovers: Embark Veterinary lost to mobile technology company Allego and will not be moving on.
Finally, Breakout Fun! and its educational games and activities for the classroom have won over voters, sending it to the next round over employee well-being startup Empida.
Check out the bracket below to see the semi-final matchups 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. 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 18 to 23
Round 5: March 24 to 28
Round 6: March 29 to April 1
2022 Inno Madness Champion announced: April 5
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
Breakout Fun!: A software company that makes educational games and activities for the classroom.
Region B
Allego: Allego is using its mobile technology to ensure teams can quickly create and share interactive content to train, onboard, coach, etc.
Region C
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.
Region D
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.
