It's time to see who will cut down the .net.
Introducing Chicago Inno's Tech Madness, a bracket-style competition to determine the Windy City tech company that you think will be the most valuable in 5 years.
[Semi Finals Voting Now Open!]
Check Out an Overview of All 64 Tech Madness Companies Here.
The entire first round is below and be sure to select the winner of each and every matchup. At the bottom of the post is the complete tournament schedule. Voting for Round 1 will close on Wednesday, 18th.
Couple Notes on the Bracket Before We Begin:
- The seeding is based on total funding. Why? Because we needed an accessible, uniform metric so that these rankings weren’t completely arbitrary. For public companies, we used Market Cap.
- The seeding does NOT reflect an editorial statement on perceived value or “strength;” it’s just funding. For example, ContextMedia has been bootstrapped since launching in 2006 and they’re universally recognized as one of the city’s fastest-growing, most successful tech startups. If we were to stage a closed-door committee-style selection process, they would probably emerge as a top seed. But here, they’re 14. It’s just how this bracket works.
- Because of this, do NOT approach the bracket like you would the NCAA one. (For March Bracket Tournament, it’s logical to automatically pencil in top seeds through the first couple of rounds). Here, every “game” is a toss up and we expect to see a number of early upsets.
- These 64 companies were pulled from ALL the nominations that we received. If a company is missing that you think should be in here, please submit them when we do it again in 2016.
- Finally, if at ANYTIME you find yourself getting worked up over seedings, omissions, inclusions, wins, or losses, shoot me an email immediately at will@chicagoinno.com and we’ll go grab a beer, take a few deep breaths together, and talk about how silly it is to get bent out of shape over a game.
Now let’s have some fun. Remember, vote for the company that you think will be more valuable in five years.
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Here's the schedule for the rest of the tournament:
March 12 (Thu.): Voting opens with 64 companies. March 18 (Wed.): 1st round closes, leaving 32. March 23 (Mon.): 2nd round closes, leaving 16. March 26 (Thu.): 3rd round closes, leaving 8. March 30 (Mon.): 4th round closes, leaving 4. April 1 (Wed.): 5th round closes, leaving 2. April 3 (Fri.): 6th round closes, championship
