Cue the brass band, please. Three weeks and 4,703 votes later, Rhode Island Inno is ready to crown this year's Tech Madness champion.
First, let's look back at the contest. We kicked things off on March 9 with a full bracket of 32 high-flying, fast-moving Ocean State companies. The bracket, which Rhode Island Inno's editorial team assembled based on nominations you sent in over the course of several weeks, encompassed a broad range of private, venture capital-backed or bootstrapped firms — new ventures at the earliest stages as well as some established favorites.
And a heated competition it was. Every single round saw several close calls. For instance, Retail MarketPoint, The Wanderlust Group and Marstone all advanced to Round 2 by no more than 52% of the votes in their respective brackets. The Wanderlust Group fell to Pangea.app in the next round, and Pangea.app fell to KerlyGirl shortly after.
Not every contest was so close, however. Elsewhere in the bracket, indie musician networking platform Artist Republik was crushing the competition with ease, securing the most votes in the entire bracket time and time again. Only KerlyGirl gave the startup a run for its money: The young afro-textured hair care startup lost by a mere four votes — what would become a pivotal moment in the competition as Artist Republik advanced to the finals.
Meanwhile, another early close call, Marstone, was making its way through the bracket. The fintech firm, although it is among the more-established companies in Rhode Island's startup scene, behaved more like an underdog, beating its competition by just a few votes each time.
It's no wonder, then, what happened when Artist Republik and Marstone went head to head.
Rhode Island, meet your 2021 Tech Madness champion. Artist Republik secured an easy victory with 487 votes, exactly 400 more than Marstone received in the very final round.
This championship is a major victory for Artist Republik, which launched just over a year ago in the dorm room of two Bryant University students. Within two weeks of its debut, the startups found itself with an 11,000-person waiting list within two weeks. Within six months, there were 17,000 users on the platform.
Artist Republik secured $540,000 in seed funding in July from such investors as Lameck Humble Lukanga, Bob Brown, former Bryant University president Ron Machtley and the rapper Hopsin, who also joined the company's board of directors. It's likely that Artist Republik is just getting started. Its CEO, Nicholas Cianfaglione, has left Bryant for the moment to pursue entrepreneurship full time, and November saw one of its largest and most aggressive months in terms of stabilizing the platform, growing users, revenue, engagement and new systems.
Could Artist Republik be a good candidate for Rhode Island Inno's Fire Awards? Only time will tell — but not that much time. Nominations for our premier awards ceremony close this Friday.
