Top seeds advanced for the most part after the first round of matchups of AZ Inno’s inaugural Inno Madness competition, but a trio of upsets shows that anything can happen.
The friendly bracket-style contest got underway last week with 16 Valley startups facing off after being selected based on reader nominations. Votes are cast based on one question: Who would you invest in? Companies were seeded based on recent fundraising levels.
Matchup results were fairly close across the board, with three companies winning by about 57% and the rest getting by on lower margins. In Region A competition, top-seeded Mosaic prevailed over GitKraken and will now face Humabiologics, which beat Aramid Technologies. Also in Region A, LuneWave beat out SaiOx, while underdog TapRoot upset Forced Physics Data Center Tech to advance.
In Region B, Qwick got past HUUB, while qBotica also got an upset win over CIRQ+; and YellowBird defeated AlgoFace, while Peerlogic was the third upset win, beating out EnPower.
More than 1,400 votes were cast in the first round, and the next round gets underway at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. Round two voting will continue through the evening of Monday, March 14, and the matchups for round three will be announced the following morning. You can find the contest rules here.
Click on the bracket below to see the round two matchups and cast your vote. If you want to learn more about the participants, check out the brief descriptions below the bracket, along with links to the startups’ websites.
Still in the hunt
The bracket is designed to shine a spotlight on 16 innovative, fast-growing local businesses. Here’s a look at the eight startups still in competition:
Mosaic - Mosaic Building Group is a digital general contractor and construction platform based in Phoenix.
Qwick - Qwick is an on-demand food and beverage staffing platform based in Phoenix.
Lunewave - Lunewave is based in Tucson and makes antenna and sensor technology.
YellowBird- YellowBird, based in Phoenix, is a health and safety skilled labor and consulting app, matching subject-matter experts with construction, manufacturing and insurance companies
Humabiologics - Humabiologics is a regenerative medicine startup based in Phoenix.
qBotica - qBotica is an automated document processing company based in Phoenix.
TapRoot - TapRoot is a Phoenix company that runs an AI-powered care management software.
Peerlogic - Peerlogic is a Scottsdale startup building a conversational intelligence platform for the dental industry.
Other competitors
And here are the companies that also competed in the first round.
EnPower - EnPower is a lithium-ion battery company based in Phoenix.
Forced Physics Data Center Tech - Forced Physics makes server cooling technology in Scottsdale.
Aramid Technologies - Aramid is a documentation automation platform based in Gilbert.
CIRQ+ - CIRQ+ is a Scottsdale company that makes an automated disinfecting platform for commercial properties.
AlgoFace - AlgoFace is a computer vision and AI face detection startup based in Carefree.
SaiOx - SaiOx is a Tucson-based medical device startup building a respiratory assist device.
HUUB - HUUB is a Phoenix-based small business support network that helps entrepreneurs connect with local governments.
GitKraken - GitKraken is a Scottsdale company that makes tools for software developers.
Read contest rules here
