Earlier this week, we kicked off Inno Madness 2023 with 64 companies from across Boston’s tech and innovation ecosystem. Nearly 2,500 votes were cast in round one, which helped us narrow down that list of companies to 32. Voting is now open in round two.
But before you cast your next votes, let’s recap what happened in round one. There were a few clear winners in several matchups. Hometap and SmartBear captured 60% of votes compared to their competitors basys.ai and Allego, but there were more close calls than runaway winners. The tightest battle was won by ClearMotion, which edged out Flexcar by only two votes. HYCU narrowly pulled ahead of Solon Labs and LinkSquares finished with just a few votes more than Tatum Robotics. There were also earlier-stage startups that beat out bigger industry names. Ezly Rent captured 53% of votes compared to Klaviyo’s 47%. Coils to Locs, a startup that provides afro-textured wigs to women experiencing hair loss, finished just ahead of IntelyCare, a company with more than $170M in funding.
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 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.
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.
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
Minute Kitchen: A food-vending startup led by a Babson College student.
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.
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.
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.
Hometap: This company provides a loan alternative called a home equity investment, allowing homeowners to tap their home equity without monthly payments.
Region B
Ezly Rent: This Black-led startup streamlines the process for renting and lending items, from DJ sets to kayaks.
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.
Divert: A West Concord-based food waste tech company that recently secured a $1 billion infrastructure development deal with Enbridge.
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.
Pixability: A marketing and advertising company that helps brands launch campaigns across YouTube and Connected TV.
Iterative Health: An AI and ML precision medicine company in the gastroenterology space.
Sign up for The Beat, BostInno’s free daily innovation newsletter from BostInno reporter Hannah Green. See past examples here.
Region C
Wasabi: This cloud storage company became a unicorn in 2022.
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.”
connectRN: This startup’s nurse-scheduling app and resources aims to give nurses and CNAs flexibility and support in their jobs.
Sea Machines Robotics: This company builds autonomous control and navigation systems for commercial boats and ships.
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.
ClearMotion: A company making software-controlled actuators for vehicles.
Region D
ezCater: Restaurants and caterers use ezCater’s platform to grow and manage their food services for companies.
Madaket Health: A Cambridge-based company with its own administration-specific solutions for the healthcare industry.
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.
Owl Labs: This Boston-based company makes remote collaboration tools and technology.
HYCU: A multi-cloud data protection SaaS company.
SmartBear: A private equity-owned maker of tools for software developers.
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.
