There were plenty of upsets in the first round of Colorado Inno Madness, with multiple younger startups beating out more established companies.
For example, e-commerce company Sheets & Giggles beat out Colorado unicorn Quantum Metric and rental technology startup Nomad beat another unicorn, health tech SonderMind.
But an established player will also continue to the next round: Pie Insurance, the winner of last year's Colorado Inno Madness bracket, advanced over Turbine Labs.
A total of 624 total votes were cast in Round 1. The biggest vote-getter was JumpCloud. The software company knocked out Roxbox to continue to the next round.
Congratulations to our Colorado Inno Round 1 winners. And to the companies that aren't advancing this time: Remember, it's all in good fun. Our goal is to put a spotlight on the wide variety of technology and innovation in our state.
Second-round voting begins now and continues until March 17. Readers can cast one vote per round. We'll open up voting round by round, ultimately crowning a Colorado Inno Madness winner at the end of the month.
Scroll down to meet the 16 participants standing before you vote and read the contest rules here.
Meet the Players heading into Round 2:
Amp Robotics - This robotic sorting technology — another 2021 Colorado Inno on Fire honoree — applies computer vision and deep learning to guide high-speed robotics systems to identify and differentiate recyclables found in the waste stream by color, size, shape, opacity, consumer brand and more.
CyberGRX - This global cyber risk exchange provider was a 2020 Colorado Inno on Fire honoree.
Fluid Truck - This fast-growing 2021 Colorado Inno on Fire Blazer winner helps businesses manage a fleet without the overhead of owning vehicles. The truck-sharing platform offers 24/7 mobile access to a variety of commercial trucks and vans available for pickup in minutes.
Guild Education - Guild's programs help businesses make access to higher education an employee benefit.
Harvest Hosts - This is a club for RVers offering unique overnight stays at farms, wineries, breweries, distilleries, golf courses and other small businesses across North America and another 2021 Colorado Inno on Fire honoree.
Ibotta - This Denver rewards technology unicorn recently made a deal with Walmart to offer a digital offers program to its 100 million monthly active users and has plans to go public.
JumpCloud - With easy access and tight security being key tools in the work-from-home toolbox, JumpCloud says its solution gives customers a cloud-based platform that simplifies user and device management.
Mentor Spaces - This startup aims to make meaningful connections between employees at large companies and prospective, often underrepresented, talent using machine learning and artificial intelligence to facilitate conversations between experts and mentees.
Nomad - This rental technology startup offers a marketplace that gives small-time rental property owners guaranteed rent.
Onward Delivery - This company is a freight marketplace that connects retail stores to underutilized trucks on the road. Onward's platform matches available shipments to a truck already headed in the same direction to create a more efficient shipping model for retailers, full trucks for carriers and quicker deliveries for customers.
Pie Insurance - This dual-headquartered insurance startup was the winner of last year's Colorado Inno Madness bracket.
Sheets & Giggles - This e-commerce bedding company was an Extra-Small category winner in DBJ's 2021 Small Business Awards.
Shinesty - This e-commerce company offers men's and women's underwear subscriptions, among other clothing options.
Soona - Denver-based content studio startup Soona offers virtual photo and video shoot technology.
Stackhawk - This 2020 Colorado Inno Startups to Watch company enables engineers to find and remediate security problems in development and production through continuous vulnerability scanning.
Stream - With offices in Amsterdam and Boulder, this chat messaging infrastructure startup offers an API for building, scaling and personalizing feeds.
