The races were tight across the board in the first round of our inaugural KC Inno Madness contest, which highlights the Kansas City metro's innovative and rising startups.
Upsets marked the first round, with No. 1 seed Steadily and No. 2 Hawaiian Bros getting knocked out. In all, lower seeds won 11 of the 16 matchups in Round 1.
Three competitors won by only 2 percentage points: Neer, Veeper and Ronawk. Splitsy garnered the biggest victory, finishing 16 percentage points ahead of Epigraph.
Nearly 1,200 people voted in the competition with this question in mind: "Whom would you invest in?"
We started the pack with 32 competitors, which have been narrowed to 16. Voting for Round 2 starts Tuesday with an updated bracket and continues through Sunday. We'll announce the Round 2 winners on March 14. (Here's what you need to know about the contest rules.)
Curious about the margins in Round 1? Click here for a look at the results.
Meet the remaining competitors:
ApolloTech: An insurtech company that offers online enrollment solutions to insurance agents and consumers. Its central hub features the best carriers, ranging from healthcare.gov to private carriers and health sharing options. It wants to revolutionize how health insurance is done and put an end to the many Americans who suffer from financial and health hardships because they don't know their options.
Artio Medical: Delivers innovative medical devices with the potential to provide impactful solutions to important unmet medical needs in the peripheral vascular, neurovascular and structural heart markets.
Bodify: An app that helps online apparel shoppers find the right fit the first time. The startup uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to analyze a user’s photos and recommend the sizes and brands that best suit a customer’s body type.
First Boulevard: A neobank that’s open to all but is focused on building solutions tailored for the Black community that can break down the barriers of financial disparity and help them build generational wealth. Some current perks include early access to paychecks, a personal finance management tool and just-in-time financial education, which helps users track budgets and financial goals in real time.
Fit Truk: Created a fully equipped mobile gym that’s attached to a truck and includes features such as a weather-proof sound system and app-controlled LED lights to set the mood. A variety of strength-training equipment is attached to the exterior for the startup’s cutting-edge group strength training workouts, which are designed to provide maximum results in a safe and fun environment.
Fresh Factory KC: A premier selfie studio and event space located in Zona Rosa. It invites guests to #playpartyphoto in more than a dozen themed selfie sets celebrating Kansas City's fresh culture and its people.
Homebase: A hubless solution for smart multitenant buildings. Whether for multifamily, mixed-use, coworking or other commercial properties, users can stay connected with smart access control, community WiFi, device automation and digital payments.
Kenzen: A physiological monitoring platform that includes a wearable device to keep workforces safe from heat, fatigue and overexertion on the job. Its data-driven insights also help companies maintain productivity.
MatchRite Care: A HIPAA-compliant software platform that gives patients access to health records throughout all health systems. Through the unified portal, patients can access and share their medical records with hospitals, schools and specialty clinics, among others.
Neer: Developed a real-time water management platform that uses machine learning to help cities and private utilities save money and become proactive with water, sewer and stormwater maintenance. In addition to identifying leaks, Neer can predict failures in water, sewer and stormwater collection systems.
Plabook: Gamifies learning and uses artificial intelligence, natural language processing and speech recognition to teach children how to read. It can analyze a child’s progress, recommend books and interventions, and provides a parent and teacher dashboard.
PMI Rate Pro: Saves homebuyers money and makes mortgage lenders’ jobs easier. Its proprietary quoting tool allows lenders to easily compare all six national private mortgage insurance providers in about six seconds.
Ronawk: A life sciences startup that’s garnering interest in new markets, such as cultured meat. Its Bio-Block platform includes different substrates that easily connect to one another like Legos and enable cells to grow in a 3D format. Bio-Block eliminates the need for subculturing, allowing scientists to rapidly grow cells and focus more time on high-impact experiments for developing next-generation therapies.
Splitsy: Developed a mobile application that allows users, such as roommates, to automate the process of splitting shared recurring transactions such as rent, utilities, streaming services and more.
Veeper: A Shopify app that tracks a customer’s spending habits over time and solves the problem of universal discount codes, which typically cause retailers to overspend. Veeper’s algorithm nudges shoppers to add more items to their cart to see their discount increase. The most loyal shoppers get rewarded the most.
Vytelle: A precision livestock company reshaping how cattle producers worldwide optimize their herds. Through Vytelle’s integrated technology platform, generations of genetic gains can be made in just a few years. This allows producers to sustainably increase meat and milk production and ensure that they’re offering viable, competitive food choices for future generations.
