There’s a new champion in St. Louis Inno Madness.
Arcadian Infracom has claimed the bragging rights in the 2023 edition of St. Louis Inno’s bracket challenge. Nearly 5,400 votes were cast in the final matchup of Inno Madness, with top-seeded Arcadian besting No. 15 GiftAMeal in the championship matchup by just 36 votes.
Arcadian joins Business Video School, the champion of our inaugural Inno Madness in 2022, as winners of the contest.
Arcadian, founded in 2018, develops and operates long-haul fiber networks for use by technology companies and carriers. Its Inno Madness championship comes as it recently notched a major milestone. In February, Arcadian and the California Department of Technology announced they’ve entered into a joint-build contract for a new 306-mile fiber route in California. Arcadian will be responsible for handling the design, construction and operation of the fiber route, which will run from Los Angeles to California's border with Arizona. Arcadian said the route is slated for completion in 2026 and will be part of a larger fiber route that continues into Arizona.
Dan Davis is CEO and co-founder of Arcadian, which said it has other projects in the works in the U.S. Southwest and expects announcements regarding those in the second quarter this year. The company said it “believes that it is well on its way to emerging as the St. Louis region’s fastest growing technology company.”
This year’s Inno Madness runner-up, GiftAMeal, is led by founder and CEO Andrew Glantz and has developed an app that provides a meal to someone in need each time a user takes a photo on its app at a partner restaurant. The startup works with local food pantries to distribute the meals.
Since its launch, GiftAMeal has helped provide 1.3 million meals through 65 local food banks, Glantz said. He said the company has doubled its revenue in the last 12 months and has expanded to have restaurant partners in 31 states. He said recent milestones include signing on its first consumer packaged goods partner, hot sauce brand Texas Pete; creating a branded, app-less version of GiftAMeal for chain restaurants; and signing on its first mall partner, West County Center in Des Peres.
By the end of July, GiftAMeal expects to have helped provide 1.5 million meals as it expands to have restaurant partners in 35 states and 75 food bank partners, Glantz said.
More than 13,700 votes were submitted by readers during the five rounds of voting in this year’s Inno Madness contest. That engagement highlights the goal of Inno Madness, which was to give a snapshot of some of the most promising tech companies in St. Louis. This contest was by no means a complete list of St. Louis' best startups, which is a testament to the size of St. Louis' tech scene. Our bracket sought to represent the full breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In the end, we hope you thought of the bracket as a fun look into local, technology-enabled companies you need to know in 2023.
Congratulations to all 32 companies that competed in this year’s St. Louis Inno Madness. Thank you for your participation and for adopting the spirit of Inno Madness through your friendly competition and efforts to get out the vote for your companies. We hope to see you again in the bracket next year. A bracket with full results of this year's contest is below.
