Our Boston Inno Madness competition is here. We've got 64 local companies vying for the coveted title of 2023 Inno Madness champion.
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 was assembled based on nominations from readers, members of the innovation community and the Inno editorial team. It 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 2023. Last year, Realtime Robotics took home the trophy. Other past winners include MineralTree (2021), Berkshire Grey (2020) and Toast (2019).
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 newsletter. 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 6 to 9
Round 2: March 10 to 15
Round 3: March 16 to 21
Round 4: March 22 to 27
Round 5: March 28 to 31
Round 6: April 3 to April 6
2022 Inno Madness Champion announced: April 12
Now, it’s time to get to the voting. Once each round of voting closes, we’ll advance the winners.
How do I vote?
You can vote in the bracket below, which will be automatically updated throughout the competition.
Let's go!
Meet this year’s players, which are broken up into four regions.
Region A
Snyk: A Boston cybersecurity company with more than $1 billion in funding.
Minute Kitchen: A food-vending startup led by a Babson College student.
Liberty Defense: This Wilmington-based company makes “ghost gun” detectors that recently became commercially available.
Atlantic Quantum: This company says it is building scalable quantum computers to tackle the world’s hardest computational challenges.
MedMinder: MedMinder allows people to manage their loved ones’ medications remotely.
Paragonix Technologies: Founded in 2010, Paragonix develops medical devices to safely transport organs between donors and recipients.
AtScale: A computer software company providing business intelligence and data science across all industries.
Rocket VR Health: This startup is making VR mental health programs for patients undergoing operations with long hospital stays.
Paperless Parts: Paperless Parts operates an estimating and quoting platform for job shops and contract manufacturers.
Perch: This startup uses computer vision and machine learning algorithms to monitor an athlete’s movements during exercise in the gym.
IntelyCare: IntelyCare is empowering health care workers to build their own schedule and find work-life balance.
Coils to Locs: A Boston startup that provides afro-textured wigs to women experiencing hair loss.
BondLink: This company runs an investor relations and disclosure platform for municipal bond issuers.
KAID Health: KAID Health pulls clinical data from electronic medical records and other systems to identify revenue, quality and cost opportunities.
Hometap: This company provides a loan alternative called a home equity investment, allowing homeowners to tap their home equity without monthly payments.
basys.ai: The tech company uses its AI technology to predict and improve outcomes for patients with metabolic health diseases.
Region B
Klaviyo: A customer data and marketing automation company.
Ezly Rent: This Black-led startup streamlines the process for renting and lending items, from DJ sets to kayaks.
Dexai Robotics: This Charles Stark Draper Laboratory is rolling out automated food preparation robots.
Nanopath: A women-led, women’s-health focused diagnostics startup trying to speed up pelvic and gynecologic health testing so patients can get results and a treatment plan in a single visit.
Fairmarkit: Fairmarkit helps companies automate the sourcing process within their existing workflows.
Eascra Biotech: A Boston biotech that received a NASA grant to test the manufacturing of its unique nanomaterials in space.
Divert: A West Concord-based food waste tech company that recently secured a $1 billion infrastructure development deal with Enbridge.
Rivet: Boston-based Rivet helps creators with fan management.
Modulate: A Cambridge company that turned its voice modulator into a tool to fight online toxicity and raised a $30 million Series A round of venture capital last year.
Wabbi: A woman-founded cybersecurity company trying to modernize how application security is deployed.
LinkSquares: This company developed an AI-powered, end-to-end contract lifecycle management platform.
Tatum Robotics: Boston-based Tatum Robotics is developing tactile sign language robots for the DeafBlind community.
Pixability: A marketing and advertising company that helps brands launch campaigns across YouTube and Connected TV.
Foundation Devices: This startup sells a Bitcoin hardware wallet known as Passport and offers a mobile app, Envoy, as a digital sovereignty toolkit and Bitcoin software wallet.
Iterative Health: An AI and ML medicine company in the gastroenterology space.
Phoenix Tailings: Woburn-based Phoenix Tailings is operating a new rare earth metal refinery in Somerville.
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Region C
Wasabi: This cloud storage company became a unicorn in 2022.
All Stage: This company’s platform brings investors and entrepreneurs together for early-stage investing.
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.
Epicore Biosystems: This company makes sweat-sensing wearables for athletes and industrial workers.
Osmo: This Google Research spinout is “giving computers a sense of smell.”
Themis AI: An MIT-founded startup developing technology for more trustworthy AI.
connectRN: This startup’s nurse-scheduling app and resources aims to give nurses and CNAs flexibility and support in their jobs.
Groops: Milton-based Groops bring experts in group psychology to the virtual office to lead team development programs on a subscription basis.
Sea Machines Robotics: This company builds autonomous control and navigation systems for commercial boats and ships.
Aclarity: A venture-backed water technology company that destroys contaminants in water at an industrial scale.
NewStore: This startup helps retail companies manage things like mobile point-of-sale, order management, inventory management and store fulfillment.
High Time Foods: This startup, founded by two Babson College MBA students, is commercializing a plant-based minced chicken that is shelf-stable and preservative-free.
Lambent: This company provides SaaS solutions for crowd intelligence.
Nix: The Boston startup recently launched a wearable biosensor to analyze sweat and provide endurance athletes with personalized hydration data in real time.
ClearMotion: A company making software-controlled actuators for vehicles.
Flexcar: A car subscription company that gives people the flexibility to have a car of their own without traditional car ownership or leasing.
Region D
ezCater: Restaurants and caterers use ezCater’s platform to grow and manage their food services for companies.
Lawnbright: This startup brings natural, DIY lawn care to people's door through a tech-enabled solution.
Madaket Health: A Cambridge-based company with its own administration-specific solutions for the healthcare industry.
Vizit: This Boston company is making technology to measure what makes an effective image for a company’s target customers.
Stavvy: Stavvy created a secure platform that simplifies workflows for banks, lenders, servicers and other organizations.
Stackwell: Last year, Stackwell Capital Inc. launched its robo-investing app aimed at eliminating the racial wealth gap.
Drift: A Boston-based marketing and sales software maker, and a unicorn company.
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.
Owl Labs: This Boston-based company makes remote collaboration tools and technology.
juli: This digital healthcare startup is on a mission to use data to improve the lives of people with chronic conditions.
HYCU: A multi-cloud data protection SaaS company.
Solon Labs: This company is creating a “web3 app store” through a mobile and web wallet that functions as a decentralized access point to exchanges, NFTs, financial services, etc.
SmartBear: A private equity-owned maker of tools for software developers.
Allego: Allego is using its mobile technology to ensure teams can quickly create and share interactive content to train, onboard, coach, etc.
Starburst: A data and analytics company that provides customers with a single point of secure data access. At the start of 2022, the Boston-based company raised $250 million in Series D financing.
Rooted Living: Northeastern University student Rachel Domb (BostInno 25 under 25 in 2022) founded this sustainable food brand.
