Welcome to Round 3 of the Wisconsin Inno Madness competition! Based on your votes in Round 2, we're down to eight local startups vying for the coveted title of 2022 Inno Madness champion.
In Round 2 last week, underdog Honeycomb Luxury (#32) captured the most overall votes — 1,779 — to beat WorkShift (#17) by a 12-percentage-point margin. Valortech (#20) was victorious over last year's second-place winner Pivotal Health (#4) by an 11-percentage-point margin, with nearly 56% of the votes.
There were also some super close Round 2 matchups — Rapid Radicals Technology (#7) edged out PartsBadger (#23) by just 27 votes to win by picking up 50.4% of the votes.
See the full results of Round 2 below and here.
Round 3 voting begins now and continues through March 18 at 11:59 pm. See below for the schedule for the rest of the competition. The final winner will be announced the week of March 28.
- March 22: Round 4 voting opens in the morning
- March 23: Round 4 voting ends at 11:59 p.m.
- March 24: Round 5 voting opens in the morning
- March 25: Round 5 voting ends at 11:59 p.m.
Let's get into Round 3...
Meet the players
The bracket was designed to highlight innovative, fast-growing local businesses. We assembled it based on reader nominations and editorial input from the Wisconsin Inno team. Meet the participants below and read the contest rules here.
Vote for the company you'd most like to invest in, whether that's because you believe in its mission or product, you'd prefer to back a more established company versus an early-stage startup, or for any other reason entirely up to you.
Matchup 1
- Honeycomb Luxury (#32): Based in Wauwatosa, Honeycomb Luxury makes eco-friendly toilet tissue made from bamboo. It was founded in 2019 by Christie Yau, the former director of business development at Bright Cellars, a Wisconsin-based wine subscription startup. Honeycomb is on pace for seven-figure revenue in 2022, according to the company.
- Showboat (#9): Showboat is a web-based 3D virtual events platform designed to host natural and effective virtual conferences, networking events, sales meetings, fundraisers and town hall meetings that allow participants to interact face-to-face in a virtual space. It has raised $1 million, according to the Milwaukee company.
Matchup 2
- Valortech (#20): Valortech in Milwaukee is a veteran-owned company that provides information technology (IT) support. With a focus on security, it offers services including cybersecurity support, managed services, data center services and more. The company is bootstrapped.
- Child Health Imprints (#5): This company has developed informational and computational technologies for neonatal intensive care units across the world, designed to improve outcomes for pre-term births. Founded in Singapore in 2018, it established its U.S. branch in Madison in 2021 and has raised $3 million to date, according to the company.
Matchup 3
- Understory (#2): Based in Madison, Understory builds insurance solutions for the era of climate change. Each policyholder gets a Dot, Understory's weather sensor that enables the company to accurately price its severe weather risk products. The company has raised $24.5 million since it was founded in 2012, according to the company's website.
- Rapid Radicals Technology (#7): Based in Milwaukee, Rapid Radicals has developed a decentralized, high-rate wastewater treatment technology capable of keeping up with urban population growth and climate change. It says it has raised roughly $1.34 million in grant funding to help public and private entities improve water quality and public health.
Matchup 4
- Helium Books (#19): Based in Milwaukee, this startup aims to make libraries more accessible through the gig economy. It offers library book deliveries for less than $5 per book, according to the company's website. Helium Books has raised more than $10,000 in capital, according to its nomination form.
- Carbliss (#11): This Wisconsin-based beverage company was founded in 2018 by a husband and wife team. It makes vodka-based canned cocktails that have zero carbs and sugar, and are available at bars and grocery stores around the Milwaukee area. The company said it has raised around $750,000.
Disclaimers
Vote here or below.
The goal of Inno Madness is to give a snapshot of some of the most promising tech companies in Wisconsin. It is by no means a complete list of Wisconsin's best startups. It's also not just a list of the 32 most-funded startups in the region. See all 32 startups here.
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 tech companies you need to know in 2022.
Read contest rules here.
