Introducing the Quarter Finals of NTX Tech Madness

It’s been another week of intense matchups, with some close calls and blowouts, as the second round of the Tech Madness bracket comes to a close. But the competition is still heating up and Round 3 has just opened.

This time around, there were again some surprises. The more well-funded restaurant and hospitality technology startup OneDine lost out to commercial real estate SaaS startup Dottid. Also, in a head-to-head match between two of NTX Inno’s Startups to Watch, diversity and inclusion startup Kanarys beat out Goodieboxx, a self-service retail concept. In addition, though accepted into a number of accelerators and having a staff that includes a former Health Wildcatters employee, MyndVR lost out to local coworking concept Common Desk.

One of the matches was a surprising blowout. Competitive esports platform Geekletes won out over Polte, an Addison-based cloud location service startup, with more than 4X the votes, despite Polte landing a $12.5 million Series A-2 round last year.

However, there were a couple of close calls. Car-focused social networking app Park Up Front inched past Dallas ridesharing startup Alto by just 20 votes. In an even closer match, Plano-based Glorious PC Gaming Race, a maker of PC gaming equipment, managed to win over financial services startup Securing Life Today.

In this round, more than 1,800 votes were cast, showing that interest in Tech Madness and that the local innovation and startup community is growing.

Now, let’s get ready for Round 3.

In this round, it will be interesting to see how Dottid fares after beating out companies in round one and two that have recently created more buzz or raised more funding. In addition, Kanarys, one of the newest startups left in the competition is going up against coworking company Common Desk. While both have made a name for themselves in the local community, they are from fairly different industries.

So, check out the bracket and start voting in Round 3. Remember, winners of each match are determined by a simple question: Which company would you invest in? It doesn’t matter whether you’re thinking with your wallet or if you’re just really passionate about a certain startup. This is a friendly competition designed to highlight some of the most exciting startups in the region.

Here’s the upcoming voting schedule:

And here’s a look at the updated bracket.