Since today would normally be March 1 (thanks, Leap Day), we decided to roll out the bracket for our third annual KY Inno Madness competition.
Similar to the first two editions, we have compiled a team of 32 innovative, fast-growing startups from Kentucky and Southern Indiana who will all be in the hunt for regional entrepreneurial ecosystem bragging rights.
The rules are simple: Every week, we will have startups going head-to-head in a bracket-style competition. Viewers can vote for one startup in each matchup when the voting period is open. The companies with the most votes in that round advances.
Voting should be centered on the following question: Who would you invest in? Click here to vote in the first round.
The bracket is assembled by the KY Inno team. Seeding — although not that important — was determined by a variety of factors, which included how well the startup is known by the ecosystem.
In keeping with previous rules, only one startup from last year’s competition has returned to the bracket — that being last year’s winner, Feedcoyote, which came in the 2023 competition as a six seed. The startup that has created a collaborative platform for freelancers managed to rally its community to bring home the championship victory against another upstart, Farmers Plus, a five seed from Leitchfield, Kentucky.
When I first spoke with Feedcoyote Co-founder/CEO Stevens Bonhomme, he was based in Paducah, Kentucky. Now, he calls Louisville home after picking up a variety of Derby City-based accolades, including being named a winner of both the 2023 Render Competition and Vogt Awards — in additions to going to Techstars Atlanta that same year. On top of all of that, Bonhomme earned a 2023 KY Inno Fire Award under the category of “CEOs.”
Please note: The goal of Inno Madness is to simply give a glimpse of some of the most-promising tech companies in our region. It is by no means a complete list of our best startups, which is a testament to the growing size of the commonwealth’s tech scene. It’s also not a list of the 32 most-funded startups.
Instead, the bracket is meant to represent the full breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In the end, think of the bracket as just a fun look into local companies you need to know in 2024.
You will notice that several of the companies in the bracket were featured as part of our 2024 KY Inno Startups to Watch.
First-round voting begins now and continues through 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, March 5. Readers can cast one vote per round.
We’ll open up voting round by round, ultimately crowning a winner on Monday, April 1 (no fooling). Be sure to subscribe to KY Inno’s free newsletter, The Beat, to stay up to date on the matchups.
Meet the players
Feedcoyote (Louisville) — Feedcoyote serves as a collaboration platform for freelancers. It was created to address both the increasing numbers of freelancers in the digital space, and the resulting increased need for connections to other freelancers.
HANDLE Global (Louisville) — The company offers a capital cycle management platform that uses analytics to provide data, insights and recommendations to hospitals and health systems regarding their fleet of medical equipment. The software includes risk scoring to help decision makers in equipment lifecycle planning and budgeting decisions.
Better Blend (Covington, Kentucky) — A healthy smoothie shop chain that has begun to expand across Kentucky and beyond. The store’s signature “blends” are made with clean protein, greens, oat powder, flax seed and vitamins.
Liberate Medical (Crestwood, Kentucky) — The company is the producer of VentFree, a a noninvasive nerve and muscle stimulator that synchronizes with breathing treatments to help prevent respiratory muscle atrophy in mechanically ventilated patients.
NX Prenatal (Louisville) — NX Prenatal develops diagnostic tests for adverse pregnancy conditions such as preterm birth, preeclampsia and placenta accreta, according to the company’s website. The tests are designed to give physicians time to intervene and attempt to reduce possible complications for the baby and the mother.
Nichefire (Covington, Kentucky) — Nichefire is a predictive cultural intelligence platform. We help businesses identify and predict the impact of emerging consumer, political, economic and societal trends on their brands and consumers.
ThynkHealth (Lexington, Kentucky) — The company works with healthcare organizations and communities to disrupt outdated lung cancer screening processes and remove barriers standing between patients and treatment. It does so through a software solution that can identify at-risk populations for screening, enable early detection and provide treatment solutions.
Armadillo Home Solutions (Clarksville, Indiana) — Armadillo Home Solutions is a tech-enabled provider of home warranty products. The company launched its first self-service product in November. Along the way it has been able to sign contracts with some of the world’s top retail and consumer product goods [CPG] brands.
Limitless Minds (Louisville) — Limitless Minds is a performance solution for performers at work, training the mind of the “corporate athlete” to perform at the highest levels. The company places an emphasis on mental fitness through a platform helping elevate performance, while reducing the cost of a non-resilient team, by bringing together coaches, behavioral science and technology.
Rivergreen Cocktails (Louisville) — The premium, canned cocktails are made with real fruit juices, natural sweeteners and sparkling water. With an alcohol beverage volume (ABV) of 12%, they are crafted to taste like a cocktail you would order at a bar or restaurant, but offer the convenience of a can.
Lunae (Bowling Green, Kentucky) — From the founders of Oria Health, Lunae takes ideas and transforms them into real technology, sellable products, or usable design.
pac-IQ (Louisville) — The startup is a software company founded by clinicians who saw the need for a dynamic shift in technologies to support the post-acute care continuum. It offers a Software-as-Service (SaaS) to health care providers to remediate the process of referral and admissions management of post-acute care.
The Kentucky Hug (Louisville) — The startup centralizes available distillery experiences into one aggregated marketplace. Consumers can search dates, plan logistics, manage their trips and book through one platform, which runs on a custom booking system for the bourbon industry while solving for its current challenges. This system allows providers and distilleries to centralize data from all points of sale on property into one dashboard.
HempWood (Murray, Kentucky) — The company creates the only carbon-negative — and the only no-waste — flooring in the country. It does so by using the stems of hemp plants and soy-based glue and putting them together using specially designed machines that exert lots and lots of pressure, making a material that is 20% harder than hickory.
Smoove Creations (Covington, Kentucky) — The startup provides an opportunity for organizations to exhibit their brand and reward their employees through customizable footwear.
FlyWire (Lexington, Kentucky) — Using a combination of video, GPS and other sensors, the startup manufactures a fishing tech device that can record a variety of data points that allow fishermen to meet compliance and enforcement regulations, among other cost-saving benefits, such as insights into labor efficiency, catch quality and catch efficiency.
PrognostX Health (Louisville) — A biotech startup that has been working on developing a rapid, single-assessment test for chronic kidney disease (CKD).
Immersive Hearing Technologies (Louisville) — The startup s is developing a hearing aid demonstration that brings real-life settings to the audiology clinic, allowing patients to listen to the features and benefits of hearing aids in the places they need them the most. The system helps audiologists provide more hearing aids, upgrade more patients to premium devices and improve patient outcomes with a more user-involved fitting workflow.
OrganiLock (Madisonville, Kentucky) — The company produces animal-matter-based plant food and soil food. Its patent-pending process turns factory farm waste into a rapid and renewable solution for soil regeneration.
Real-Time Safety Solutions (Bowling Green) — The startup uses a patented digital screen that can be attached to the passenger side visor or side window of a rideshare/tax car. When the driver approaches the pickup location, both the screen and the passenger’s phone can flash the same color, allowing passengers to quickly identify the appropriate driver’s vehicle.
Besti Co. (Louisville) — Besti is a period care subscription service that offers personalized comfort delivered to sync up with a woman’s menstrual cycle. The company’s monthly boxes come complete with organic feminine hygiene products, spa-grade self care and relaxation products — and snacks to satisfy cravings.
AuthoFi (Paducah, Kentucky) — A health tech startup, AuthoFi reimagines the patient prior authorization journey with its AI-powered process that validates eligibility, prior authorization and clinical criteria; assists scheduling and aligns coding with approved authorizations — all while ensuring patient communication and engagement.
Ewagers (Paducah, Kentucky) — Ewagers is a patented, fully audited/approved, payment card industry (PCI)-compliant skill-based wagering technology company for esports.
VR Together (Lexington, Kentucky) — The startup is developing a digital therapeutic virtual reality tool to delay the onset and halt the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease-related dementias by empowering older adults to maintain social engagement, cognition and physical activity in fun and engaging activities from the comfort of their own home.
Fetal Life (Prospect, Kentucky) — The biotech startup is a pregnancy medical device company based in Kentucky that offers a clinically approved device to measure the duration and frequency of a pregnant woman’s contractions at home.
My Food, My Choice (Louisville) — The startup is a digital software platform that uses picture and sound technology to help people with autism and Down syndrome independently make healthier food choices through gamified learning and incentivization — thereby reducing friction between eaters and caregivers while improving health outcomes.
Craftech Innovations (Louisville) —The company’s primary focus is assisting auto body technicians to repair vehicles to a level of quality indistinguishable from original equipment manufacturer.
Black Box Energy Systems (Owingsville, Kentucky) — The startup is developing NEMo (Nautical Electric Motor), which is described as being a more efficient motor for an underwater training target. The company’s patented motor technology has proven to be more efficient across a wider range of power levels than traditional motors. In addition, it is smaller, lighter and uses up to 80% less copper to create the same level of power.
Dais (Louisville) — Dais is the first application and web-based platform that provides on-demand, wheelchair-accessible and adaptive rideshare services exclusively for power or manual wheelchair users and individuals with limitations in mobility.
Adelphi Technology (Bowling Green, Kentucky) — The company is a spin out from research conducted at the Western Kentucky University Applied Physics Institute. The company is developing high precision, portable gas analyzers that can be used to measure air quality.
Bluegrass Crickets (Lancaster, Kentucky) — Started as a means of food for animals, the company has been making the transition to offering crickets for human consumption as an alternative means to address food insecurity.
VetNexus (Southern Indiana) — The company, which has a platform to consolidate vet records, recently had a first-place tie (with Craftech Innovations) at the Next Big Thing Pitch Contest at Indiana University Southeast.
