Our Bay Area Inno Madness competition is here. And we've got 32 local startups vying for the coveted title of 2022 Inno Madness champion.
Inno Madness is our friendly, bracket-style challenge where readers vote to advance companies based on one question: Who would you invest in?
Whether you believe in one mission or product or idea slightly over the other, how you answer that question is entirely up to you. The bracket is designed to shine a spotlight on 32 innovative, fast-growing local businesses spread across Silicon Valley and San Francisco. All have been bootstrapped or received seed funding or friends and family rounds.
The bracket is assembled based on reader nominations, as well as editorial input from the Bay Inno team. We split the bracket into two regions: Those in Silicon Valley and the South Bay, and those in the San Francisco and East Bay areas. Beyond that, the seeding was random.
Meet the participants below and read the content rules here.
The goal of Inno Madness is to give a snapshot of some of the most-promising tech companies in the entire Bay Area. It is by no means a complete list of the region's best startups, which is a testament to the size of the local tech scene. It's also not just a list of the 32 most-funded startups in the region.
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 tech local companies you need to know in 2022.
First-round voting begins now and continues through March 29. Readers can cast one vote per round. We'll open up voting round by round, ultimately crowning an Inno Madness winner in early May.
Let's get into Round 1...
Meet the Players:
SAN FRANCISCO REGION
Byteboard San Francisco
Started by two ex-Googlers, Byteboard is taking bias out of the hiring process for technical workers by adding a layer of anonymity and inserting a practical skills test that's relevant to what a software engineer would actually do on the job.
Cast Jewelry San Francisco
Women are buying their own jewelry more than ever, and Cast is meeting that demand by designing a modern line of luxury accessories. Its founders were behind other successful consumer brands like Olly, Plum Organics, Method and Welly.
Chameleon Biosciences Berkeley
Treatments for genetic disorders hold lots of promise but won't be effective if they trigger an immune response from the very patient it's meant to help. Chameleon Biosciences' founder has an extensive career in biotech, and the company is developing a way to deliver gene therapies while preventing an immune response.
Dokkaebier Oakland
This line of Asian-flavored craft beer is named after dokkaebi, mythological creatures from Korean folklore that Dokkaebier says are playful, mischievous and love "to eat, drink, and be in the company of others." Its founder has an extensive background in the food industry and is now bringing Asian flavors to the world of craft beer.
Glyphic Biotechnologies San Francisco
Along with DNA, protein sequencing can unlock a wealth of information about how our bodies work. It's a field of study called proteomics. The founders created Glyphic to make the sequencing process faster and more accurate.
Karuna Labs San Francisco
Virtual reality isn't just for gaming anymore. Karuna Labs is developing a pain management system that's delivered through a VR headset to help people with chronic pain get relief without the pain killers.
Kraus Hamdani Aerospace Emeryville
Aerospace is developing fully electric unmanned aerial systems that can fly for days or weeks at a time. Its designers took inspiration from birds that fly long distances, and in 2021, the company said one of its drones lasted 26 hours nonstop during a test flight.
Petaluma Oakland
Petaluma has worked with veterinarians to develop a line of dog food that's completely plant-based while still meeting their nutritional needs. The founders wanted to combine their passion for animals and sustainability.
Reveri Stinson Beach
Hypnosis is usually the butt of jokes but modern hypnotherapy has evolved over more than two centuries into a clinically researched treatment that has the ability to treat conditions like pain. Reveri guides users through self-hypnosis. Its founder is one of the world's foremost experts in the field and has even used the technique on himself for post-surgery pain management.
Spora Health San Francisco
Created by people of color for people of color, Spora Health is providing culturally competent health care services via telehealth. The founder previously launched another remote care app focused on mental health called Level Therapy.
Lioness Oakland
Women's sexual health, and pleasure, are still taboo in many places and Lioness wants to empower women to understand their orgasms by arming them with data via a smart vibrator. And importantly, its founding team includes two women.
WattCarbon Lafayette
What if organizations could measure real estate emissions and actually optimize energy usage to rely less on fossil fuels? WattCarbon is developing a platform to do just that by monitoring energy use and cross referencing that with real time grid data.
Black Sheep Foods Berkeley
While most alt-protein companies are going after chicken, beef, pork or seafood, Black Sheep Foods is focusing on a more niche market: lamb. Nearly all of the lamb and mutton consumed here are imported from Australia and New Zealand, according to the USDA. And Black Sheep is helping restaurants source a more sustainable, plant-based alternative.
iDENTICAL Walnut Creek
Nobody looks forward to dental surgery, but iDENTICAL is developing a way to scan a patient's tooth and create a 3D replica so that it can be implanted back into a patient's mouth without any drilling. Its co-founder worked in consumer insights at Clorox for eight years and joined a different specialized dental implant company before founding iDENTICAL.
Agtonomy South San Francisco
Agtonomy's founder has dealt with the farmworker shortage firsthand at his own vineyard and olive ranch in Geyserville. The experience inspired him to action, and now he's working with manufactures to make farm equipment autonomous.
Rubi Laboratories Sausalito
Twin sisters are developing a way to spin rayon out of carbon dioxide pulled from the atmosphere in order to make biodegradable textiles that could help the fashion industry lower its carbon footprint.
SILICON VALLEY REGION
Buzz Solutions Palo Alto
Buzz Solutions has developed AI software that analyzes images captured by drones and helicopters to detect faults and other anomalies along power lines. The technology is used to help power companies repair their power lines, helping prevent wildfires and power outages.
Change Foods San Jose
Change Foods creates dairy proteins using fermented microbes. The first product it's targeting with this technology is cheese, a favorite among dairy consumers. The startup's cheese is chemically identical to real cheese, but spares cows from the process.
Cruz Foam Santa Cruz
Cruz Foam makes a biodegradable plastic made from chitin, a biopolymer found in shrimp shells. The startup helps companies avoid the use of petroleum-based plastics, which helps reduce their environmental footprint.
HitchFire Santa Cruz
HitchFire designs and builds portable grilling equipment and accessories. The products are designed to be mounted on the hitch of a car (hence the name HitchFire) and are detachable, making them usable on tabletops and useful for overlanding, tailgating and camping.
Locale Los Gatos
Locale has curated a list of food items from local vendors across the Bay Area. Locale delivers the goods for a flat fee every Saturday, and picks up the items the day before so the products stay fresh, honoring the high-quality nature of their vendors' products.
Lover App San Mateo
Lover dubs its app "a personal trainer for your sex life." The app hosts programs, exercises and content based on real sex therapy techniques, helping users diagnose and treat their sexual problems and concerns.
Slingshot Santa Clara
Slingshot has created a database of teen tech workers from around the world for companies to hire. The startup provides international teens with a way to earn a higher income, while offering companies a way to hire "the future LeBrons of tech" before they become big.
Cana Technology Redwood City
Cana Technology has developed a molecular beverage "printer" that uses specialized cartridges to create a variety of beverages. Users can create juices, coffees, cocktails and sodas using the molecules pre-loaded into the cartridge.
dNovo San Jose
DNovo has created a hair loss treatment based on stem cells. The company uses a technique called direct reprogramming to convert skin cells into hair stem cells. This technique targets the root cause of hair loss, providing a treatment for those who've completely lost their hair.
Ebb Carbon San Carlos
Ebb Carbon is pioneering a new approach to ocean-based carbon removal. The company's proprietary electrochemical system enhances the ocean’s natural ability to safely store excess atmospheric carbon dioxide, while reducing ocean acidity.
Schmooze Palo Alto
Schmooze has created a meme-based dating app to help people with similar senses of humor meet. The app uses tagging and machine learning, as well as user bios and user-selected topics to help people find a match based on laughs.
ParkStash San Jose
ParkStash helps drivers find parking in garages, parking lots and even in homeowners' driveways. The app lets property owners lease out their parking lots and driveways and provides drivers with live occupancy information, helping them reduce the time they spend circling for parking.
NachoNacho Los Altos
NachoNacho has created a service to help companies manage their cloud-based software subscriptions. Businesses can manage their cloud subscriptions in a single account. NachoNacho also helps businesses buy new subscriptions at a discount.
Learnfully Redwood City
Learnfully helps the parents of neurodivergent children assess their kids' learning abilities. The company uses AI to measure students' responses and impressions and creates a profile so they can easily assess progress toward their learning goals.
Respira Labs Mountain View
Respira Labs has created an AI-enabled device to measure the acoustics of patients' lungs. The small, portable device provides a way to detect worsening symptoms in patients suffering from COPD, asthma or Covid-19.
Pathr Mountain View
Pathr has created AI-based software that helps companies analyze their video data to track how people move through spaces — for example, how customers move through a mall, or how workers move through a factory.
