Round Two of the 2017 Tech Madness Bracket is Live! [Voting Open]

By Will Flanagan

March 13, 2017, 01:17pm CDT

Who will cut down the .net?

After a WHOPPING 29,000 votes and several extremely close matchups in the First Round of the 2017 Tech Madness bracket, we are down to the 32 Chicago companies and startups that are still dancing. We've posted the updated regions below, as well as how to vote for who you think should make it to the Sweet Sixteen. (At the bottom of this post, we've added a complete breakdown of the bracket, with information on the seeding and the selection process).

Round One Post and Overview

As a reminder, Tech Madness is a friendly competition designed to generate awareness, excitement, and buzz for the city's thriving innovation economy and the companies that are helping shape and strengthen the ecosystem.

Each matchup in Tech Madness is determined by community voting, with readers just needing to answer one question to decide who moves on - Who do you think will have the greater impact in five years?

Round Two will end on 3/16; let's take a look at the updated bracket...

REGION 1:

REGION 2:

REGION 3:

REGION 4:

Click 'View Full Bracket' to see all 64 teams and click 'Vote' to select your Round Two victors. (You can vote below or on the original post; it's the same embed and votes only count once per day). NOW LET'S GET TO ROUND 2!

VOTING SCHEDULE:

Round 1: 3/9 - 3/13

Round 2: 3/13 - 3/16

Round 3: 3/16 - 3/20

Round 4: 3/20 - 3/23

Final 4: 3/23 - 3/29

Final Round: 3/29 - 4/3

THE INNO BRACKET BREAKDOWN:

Everybody gets one vote per matchup per day.
The bracket is designed to represent a snapshot of the entire 2017 tech ecosystem, complete with early-stage startups, public pillars, and representatives across every thriving industry in the city.
Seeding is based primarily on funding. For bootstrapped companies, seeding is determined by headcount and revenue. For public and acquired companies, we used Market Cap and the cost of the acquisition, respectively. For more information on how the bracket was assembled, see our overview here.
The seeding does NOT reflect an editorial statement on perceived value or “strength;” it’s just funding.
Because of this, do NOT approach the bracket like you would the NCAA one. (For March Madness, 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. Last year, our Final Four consisted of a 13, a 7, an 8, and a 1 seed.
These 64 companies were culled from the nominations that we received, as well as from internal research and reporting. There will be a number of companies not on this bracket that you believe deserve to be on here. And that's great; that's why this community's so strong. Let us know who you think we missed and we'll be sure to consider them for 2018.
Finally, like last year, if at ANYTIME you find yourself getting worked up over any 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 that's architected specifically to generate excitement for the Chicago ecosystem.

The 64 Tech Companies:

The Tech Madness Bracket Reveal Event Was Sponsored By: