After an explosive first round with eight upsets, things have settled down somewhat in our Inno Madness bracket.
When the dust settled Wednesday night, we only had two upsets — one of which was the lowest remaining seed, No. 8 BumptUp, out of Bowling Green, Kentucky, knocking off Louisville-based No. 4 C2 Keep in Region A after the pregnancy health startup had taken down the defending champion, No. 1-seed VividCharts out of Lexington, Kentucky, in the first round.
BumptUp will now face off against No. 2 seed XpressRun after the Louisville-based delivery startup took down No. 6 Rave On Sports out of Lexington.
In Region C, No. 5 Farmers Plus, based out of Leitchfield, Kentucky, bested No. 1 Gravity Diagnostics out of Covington, Kentucky, in the other upset. Farmers Plus will take on No. 2 BioProducts after it edged out fellow Louisville company No. 3 DesiCorp.
On the other side of the bracket between four Louisville-area companies in Region B, No. 1 Wicked Sheets took down No. 5 TitleWise. This sets up a regional final with No. 6 Affinna following the digital ticket startup's defeat of No. 7 SWIS.
Rounding things out in Region D will be No. 1 seed eBlu Solutions, out of Louisville, taking on No. 6 Feedcoyote from Paducah, Kentucky. eBlu outdid No. 4 Elixir Kombucha, out of Louisville, while Feedcoyote bested No. 7 Sikanai, based out of Park Hills, Kentucky.
Click below to vote.
A few things to note:
- Only two No. 1 seeds remain: Wicked Sheets and eBlu Solutions.
- Only one of our 2023 Startups to Watch remains in the race, that being Xpress Run.
- Out of the eight "teams" left, five are based out of Louisville.
- Both teams remaining in Region B, Wicked Sheets and Affinna had the highest margin of victory, with both getting 56% of the vote.
- A total of 1,086 people voted in the second round — thank you!
In case you missed the first round, KY Inno decided the seeds based on the age of the company and the venture dollars backing it. For reference we have copied over the “Meet the Players” section of the eight remaining teams.
Third round voting ends at 11:59 p.m. on March 22. As a refresher, click here for the rules of the competition.
Meet the players
Wicked Sheets (Louisville) — Wicked Sheets specializes in bedding and sleep products. In partnership with the University of Louisville, the Wicked Smart Pad will test application use in the Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias populations.
eBlu Solutions (Louisville) — A health-tech company that specializes in streamlining prior authorizations for infusion-based specialty medications, currently supporting infusion drug prior authorizations in rheumatology, neurology, gastroenterology and allergy/asthma.
XpressRun (Louisville) — XpressRun is a same-day delivery orchestration platform offering nationwide coverage at the lowest possible rates, giving businesses access to over 4 million couriers through one API [application program interface] integration.
BioProducts (Louisville) — BioProducts provides unique profitability solutions for agricultural residue through its patented technologies. The company’s technologies deliver xylose (a zero calorie sugar), carbon neutral biocoal (a drop in replacement for coal) and high-surface area activated carbons for multiple applications.
Farmers Plus (Leitchfield, Kentucky) — The company has a digital marketplace designed for the agriculture tech industry, which includes the capability of conducting e-commerce transactions.
Affinna (Louisville) — Affinna is a digital ticket office providing a frictionless ticket purchase, transfer and redemption experience for event hosts and fans.
Feedcoyote (Paducah, Kentucky) — 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.
BumptUp (Bowling Green, Kentucky) — BumptUp is a pregnancy health evidence-based app that helps women improve physical activity and health outcomes both through the pregnancy and postpartum stages.
