Here comes the last 16. The voting in round two of Inno Madness has drawn to a close, with nearly 3,000 votes cast by BostInno readers.
You helped us choose the remaining 16 companies. Now it’s time to whittle that list down to the final eight. But before we get back to voting, let’s recap what happened in the second round and meet some of the companies moving forward. Some of this round’s matchups had clear winners, with Wasabi running away with nearly 58% of the votes in its battle with Epicore Biosystems. Wasabi became a unicorn last year after raising $125 million. The Boston company is the seventh startup founded by CEO David Friend, a serial entrepreneur who was most recently the CEO of Carbonite Inc. Starburst also raked in 59% of the votes in its matchup against SmartBear. Other fan favorites include Stackwell, which launched an investing app aimed at closing the racial wealth gap; Sea Machines Robotics, which makes autonomous command and control technology for guiding ocean vessels; and Wabbi, a woman-founded cybersecurity company.
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.
MedMinder: MedMinder allows people to manage their loved ones’ medications remotely.
Paperless Parts: Paperless Parts operates an estimating and quoting platform for job shops and contract manufacturers.
BondLink: This company runs an investor relations and disclosure platform for municipal bond issuers.
Region B
Ezly Rent: This Black-led startup streamlines the process for renting and lending items, from DJ sets to kayaks.
Fairmarkit: Fairmarkit helps companies automate the sourcing process within their existing workflows.
Wabbi: A woman-founded cybersecurity company trying to modernize how application security is deployed.
Pixability: A marketing and advertising company that helps brands launch campaigns across YouTube and Connected TV.
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Region C
Wasabi: This cloud storage company became a unicorn in 2022.
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.
Lambent: This company provides SaaS solutions for crowd intelligence.
Region D
ezCater: Restaurants and caterers use ezCater’s platform to grow and manage their food services for companies.
Stackwell: Last year, Stackwell Capital Inc. launched its robo-investing app aimed at eliminating the racial wealth gap.
HYCU: A multi-cloud data protection SaaS company.
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.
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