Boston Startup March Madness: The Sweet 16

[Update: Round three voting has closed, but round four voting is open. Headhereto make your picks.]

[Update: Due to technical glitches with Brackify, some votes were taken into account after the bracket officially closed this morning. As a result, Dyn will be moving onto the Sweet 16 round, not Smarterer.]

March Madness rages on.Many a team dropped from the competition this weekend, causingpeople to curse their brackets, broken by underdog Mercer’s upset of Duke and Harvard’s brutal takedown by Michigan State.

But if it’s a hometown hero you’re looking for, BostInno’s Startup March Madness is your answer. We’ve asked the question: Who will be the most valuable Boston-based company in five years?

And you've answered. We started off with two brackets, painstakingly pairing up 64 startups to duke it out for the top prize. You casted your votes, and we whittled the list down to 32. Now comes the Sweet 16 – a telling moment in the tournament. This is the time for startups to shine … especially given these surprises from the last round.

Alcohol delivery service Drizly squeaked out in front of local e-commerce company and No. 1 seed Wayfair in a close match of 942 to 918 votes. In the first round, the up-and-coming startup pushed ahead of IPO-bound Actifio, which just raised $100 million in funding on a $1 billion valuation. But will Drizly be able to stand up against No. 3 seed HubSpot?

No. 14 seed IdeaPaint pushed ahead of fitness app RunKeeper, the No. 4 seed, in the last round by six points. The dry-erase paint company will move on to play Smarterer, seeded 16th, in the next round. In the closest match we’ve seen thus far, the professional skills testing startup stole the win from Dyn, the No. 2 seed, by a singular point, 712 to 711.

The second bracket’s No. 14 seed Abine took digital device reseller Gazelle, ranked 4th, downtown in the last round, 1,413 votes to 1,030. While Abine might offer up its online security products for free, it’s not giving away games so easily. The startup has a chance to make serious waves if it can beat streetwear e-commerce company Karmaloop in the next match.

The biggest takeaway from these duels: Every vote matters, people, so make your picks. So far, there’s been more than 83,000 votes cast between the two brackets. And the competition just got even more intense with the announcement of the Sweet 16.

On Thursday morning, both brackets will be broken down and readied for Elite 8 voting. Once each bracket has one reigning champion, the two companies will fight for the final title and bragging rights. Here's how the voting breaks down:

Take a look at which startups made it into the Sweet 16 and place your bets below: