It’s that time again, reader: A season of madness.
What are we going to do about it? If you guessed put our own Inno-spin (er — dunk?) on it, you’re right. Welcome to our second year of Tech Madness, a celebration of area startups and the local ecosystem that’s delightfully on-theme.
For those who are coming into our friendly competition totally blind, it works like this: After culling from a list of reader-nominated startups, we divided 32 into four different “conferences” (or, in this case, "Game of Thrones" families). Each startup will then “play” against each other over the next few weeks until we determine a winner. It’s basically March Madness … with Greater Cincy startups.
We helped choose and seed the participating companies depending on a handful of metrics, such as size, venture funding, industry and age. Know that all entities on the list are either private, venture-backed or recently exited entities.
That’s where you come in. To help the company of your choice advance to the next round, you have to support them with your vote.
While choosing who to vote for is ultimately subjective, we encourage you to engage by asking yourself, “who would I invest in?” However you interpret that question is correct. Dose one company’s core values intrigue you over another’s? Does one “player” already have a stronger showing of venture funding and you want to keep sharing the love? Or perhaps your brother’s company is facing a startup that you’ve never heard of, and you really want him to take home the prize, just ’cause. Or — maybe you love one company to pieces, but realllllyyy feel like its opponent will ultimately go the distance to become the ecosystem's first unicorn. At the end of they day? You do you.
All this voting will conclude on April 5, after which the competition will end and we’ll crown the 2019 Tech Madness winner.
Let’s make it happen! Stretch, drink your water, do some warmups and get ready to vote. First round closes Thursday, March 14, at 11:59 p.m.
