Sixty-four companies entered, but only two remain.
More than 1,400 votes were cast in the Inno Madness semifinals and two clear-cut winners emerged.
Throughout this year's competition, we saw early-stage startups take down some of the biggest names in Chicago's tech, though the semifinals was the first round not to see an upset.
In our first matchup, Region A's victor — Oak9, a Chicago-based cybersecurity startup that raised $5.9 million in 2021 — secured a spot in the finals after capturing nearly two-thirds of the votes over Science on Call.
While the other semifinal matchup between two Chicago-based apps was a little closer, travel app Out of Office came out on top over mental health app Stigma. Out of Office, started by a pair of early Trunk Club employees, offers a platform that helps users plan trips based on recommendations from your friends. The app, which launched in August 2021, raised $3.5 million in new seed funding in 2022 led by Chicago's Hyde Park Venture Partners.
Get a final look at how things shook out this year and get to voting!
Meet our finalists:
Oak9: A cybersecurity startup that integrates into a firm's development pipeline and continuously scans new code for vulnerabilities, sends alerts when there's a problem and can automatically remediate the code.
Out of Office: A travel app that helps you plan trips based on recommendations from your friends.
