An underdog claimed the championship in St. Louis Inno Madness.
Connect, a startup founded by Washington University students, has won the title in the 2024 edition of St. Louis Inno’s bracket challenge. Connect, seeded No. 32 of the 32 companies in this year’s contest, defeated No. 14 VertiGreens in Inno Madness’ championship round. Seeding in the bracket was determined based on the amount of funding raised by each company and name recognition of the businesses nominated.
Connect joins former winners Arcadian Infracom and Business Video School as champions of St. Louis Inno Madness, which debuted in 2022.
Connect offers a platform aimed at forging connections between students and alumni of the institution they attend to provide mentorship. Its platform is used by the Ritenour School District. Its founders include Fortuna Kadima, Kobe Uko, Michael Lee and Ethan Ng. Connect in March was named a finalist in the 2024 Skandalaris Venture Competition, staged by the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship at WashU.
The Inno Madness runner-up was VertiGreen, a “neighborhood vertical farm” that uses vertical hydroponic technology to grow lettuce and herbs. Based in Maplewood, VertiGreens grows its produce inside of a shipping container that founder Tova Feinberg said is equivalent to 3 acres of land. VertiGreen began selling its produce a year ago and its clients include several local chefs, Feinberg said.
Nearly 3,000 votes were cast in this year’s Inno Madness competition. 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 2024.
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.
