It is down to two.
After three weeks of voting, the inaugural AZ Inno Madness startup competition has reached its championship round, with Phoenix startups Humabiologics and qBotica facing off for the title.
Competition had been fierce over the month, especially in the second round, when hundreds of votes were coming in right to the end. The semifinal round garnered a total of 2,503 votes, and just as in earlier rounds, the results were close.
Humabiologics came out ahead over LuneWave with 56% of the votes, and qBotica edged out YellowBird with 52% of the votes.
AZ Inno Madness is a friendly bracket-style contest that got underway three 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. Championship round voting will continue through the evening of Monday, March 28, and the winner 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 two remaining startups competing to win the contest:
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.
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
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.
