Inno Madness 2022: Your votes (barely) carried Mongoose, Zizo Technologies into the final round

Round 5 update: We're down to two contenders for the champion of Inno Madness — but the battle went right down to the wire.

Mongoose beat Kangarootime, 54% to 46%, and in an even closer match, Zizo Technologies edged out MemoryFox, 50.7% to 49.3%. Kudos to all four companies for the way their supporters came out to make the round such a hotly contested one.

Now it's time to learn a little more about our final two players:

Mongoose

Mongoose develops software that helps colleges communicate with their stakeholder groups. Based in Orchard Park, this company is wholly owned by founder and CEO David Marshall and sells software-as-a-service products into colleges across the U.S. As shared in our September story, Mongoose has gone from three employees to more than 50 over the past six years. It has grown from a tiny office to more than 12,500 square feet of modern tech workspace across two buildings overlooking East Quaker Street.

Mongoose offers modern engagement solutions that balance automation and human interaction, simplifying and enriching the higher ed experience for faculty, students, families and alumni.

• • •

Zizo Technologies

Zizo Technologies has built a business gamification platform for the customer service industry.

Retention is a major issue for all employers these days. Zizo Technologies' "gamified" software platform is an answer to that trend. Zizo helps engage employees in the customer service, contact center and collections industries, giving them real-time access to their performance via leaderboards, goals and internal competitions.

Here's what Zizo says:

With the underutilization of data and decrease in staff performance, Zizo is a subscription based software solution built to enable increased performance transparency and engagement. A customizable business intelligence dashboard provides complete insight into activity metrics while a unique gaming experience, increases staff engagement, development, and performance.

So which of these two companies would get your investment dollars? Vote before Round 5 ends at 3 p.m. April 1.

Round 4 update: Top Seedz won last year's 43North competition, but that wasn't enough to sway Inno Madness voters in Round 3.

This week we say goodbye to Top Seedz, CleanFiber, Kickfurther and Centivo. Still in the game are:

The winners from this week's voting will go head to head for the crown of our inaugural Inno Madness winner. Round 4 ends March 27.

Round 3 update: What do a fox, a mongoose and a kangaroo have in common? They've all made it to Round 3 of our brackets-style startup challenge.

MemoryFox, Mongoose and Kangarootime are among the eight startups still standing. Some matches were very close — Tackle.io lost to Centivo by only six votes.

Along with Tackle.io, we said goodbye to some well-known names in the Buffalo startup community. Look through the bracket below to see who's in and who's out, then vote in the third round for the companies in these matchups that you'd vote for with your investment dollars.

Round 3 ends March 21.

Round 2 update: The first round has closed, and we've learned one thing for sure — never go up against a mongoose when glory, guts and social media prowess are on the line.

That's right: Mongoose, an Orchard Park-based business that develops software to help colleges communicate with their stockholder bases, gave the boot to ACV Auctions, Buffalo's first unicorn and a public company with a long-term roadmap of reaching $1.3 billion in revenue.

The closest race came between Rally and Zizo Technologies — Zizo eked out a win by a mere 11 votes.

Look through the bracket below to see the winners and the losers from the first round, then vote in the second round to help your picks advance. (Remember, we're looking for the companies that you would invest in!) Scroll to the bottom of the post if you need a refresher on any of the companies.

Round 2 ends March 14.

Welcome to Inno Madness, a friendly, bracket-style challenge where companies advance based on one question: Who would you invest in?

The 32-contender bracket is assembled based on reader nominations, as well as editorial input from the Buffalo Inno team. All companies are based in or have significant operations out of Buffalo.

The goal of Tech Madness is to give a snapshot of some of the fastest-growing and most-promising tech companies in Buffalo. It is by no means a complete list of the city's best startups, but it is a good list of Buffalo tech companies you should know.

What does the champion win? Bragging rights, naturally, but we'll also be recognizing the winner in our 2022 Inno Fire awards.

First round voting begins today and continues through March 8. We'll open up voting round by round, ultimately crowning an Inno Madness winner in our Beat newsletter April 5. (Not a regular reader? Sign up here for weekly updates as the competition progresses and to stay on top of all things Buffalo tech and startups.)

Scroll down to learn more about all of the companies in our bracket.

Meet the players