Competition got hot in the second round of the AZ Inno Madness bracket-style contest that highlights Arizona startups.
After the first round of voting among the field of 16 companies drew just over 1,400 votes, the action quadrupled for round two, with 5,587 votes being cast — hundreds of them during a last-day surge on Monday that went late into the evening.
One reason for that may have been the fierce competition to get ahead in the four matchups, which were sometimes nearly evenly split over the course of the round two week and remained close right up to the end.
When all was said and done, however, four startups pulled ahead to stay in the running as the contest moves to the semifinals. In Region A, Humabiologics got 52% of the votes to get past Mosaic, while Lunewave beat TapRoot with 53% of the tally. In Region B, qBotica edged out Qwick with 51% of the votes, and 53% of the voters helped YellowBird knock out Peerlogic.
That means Humabiologics will now face off against Lunewave and qBotica will take on YellowBird to see who advances to the championship matchup.
AZ Inno Madness is a friendly bracket-style contest that got underway two weeks ago 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.
See below to find out more about all 16 companies that were nominated to start the competition two weeks ago.
The semifinal third round gets underway at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. Round three voting will continue through the evening of Monday, March 21, and the matchups for round three will be announced the following morning. You can find the contest rules here.
Still in the hunt
The bracket was designed to shine a spotlight on 16 innovative, fast-growing Arizona businesses. Here’s a look at the four startups still in competition:
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.
Other competitors
And here are the companies that also competed in the earlier rounds.
Qwick - Qwick is an on-demand food and beverage staffing platform based in Phoenix.
Mosaic - Mosaic Building Group is a digital general contractor and construction platform 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.
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.
