After 5 rounds and nearly 4,500 votes, a local tech company is ready to cut down the .net.
Tampa-based Perch Security, a community defense platform that closed a $9 million Series A in October, is the inaugural Tech Madness champion, registering 67% of the vote in the championship round.
Mirroring the March Bracket Tournament tournament, Perch Security's run featured plenty of close calls, highlighted by a one vote victory over enterprise security company ReliaQuest in round two. The company gained momentum as the tournament went along, recording more votes in each subsequent round.
Perch Security, which combines self-service threat intelligence tools with a managed security operations center, has been on the market for a little over two years, and has been growing rapidly since its launch in 2016. Perch's Series A came through a combined investment from local tech pillar ConnectWise and existing investor Fishtech Group, with ConnectWise's Founder and CEO Arnie Bellini joining Perch's Board of Directors.
The runner-up was smart home control maker Atmos Home.
As a reminder, Tech Madness, every year, is a friendly competition designed to shine a spotlight on some of the region’s most interesting and exciting startups. The companies in the bracket were nominated by the community, and readers voted to advance the winner by picking the startups they’d most want to invest in.
The answer to that question – who would you invest in? – can be based on whatever metrics you find important. It could be the ones you expect to have the best return — or maybe it’s those you’re most passionate about and want to see succeed.
And Here's a Look Back at Tampa Bay Inno's Inaugural Tech Madness:
1 vXchnge 8 Atmos Home
1 Vology 8 Presence.io
1 FairWarning 8 Docola
1 A-LIGN 8 Script
2 KnowBe4 7 Knack
2 ReliaQuest 7 Teambrella
2 Peerfit 7 Harness
2 Homee 7 Tembo
3 Bond-Pro 6 Harvest Croo
3 Perch Security 6 TAO Connect
3 Dabbl 6 Intrinio
3 Venuetize 6 PikMyKid
4 Telepathy Labs 5 Symphonic Distribution
4 SavvyCard 5 SiteZeus
4 Washlava 5 BenefitHub
4 5x5 Technologies 5 Webtalk
COMPLETE RANKINGS, 1-32:
| 1 | vXchnge |
| 1 | Vology |
| 1 | FairWarning |
| 1 | KnowBe4 |
| 2 | A-LIGN |
| 2 | ReliaQuest |
| 2 | Peerfit |
| 2 | Homee |
| 3 | Bond-Pro |
| 3 | Perch Security |
| 3 | Dabbl |
| 3 | Venuetize |
| 4 | Telepathy Labs |
| 4 | SavvyCard |
| 4 | Washlava |
| 4 | 5x5 Technologies |
| 5 | Symphonic Distribution |
| 5 | SiteZeus |
| 5 | BenefitHub |
| 5 | Webtalk |
| 6 | Harvest Croo |
| 6 | TAO Connect |
| 6 | Intrinio |
| 6 | PikMyKid |
| 7 | Knack |
| 7 | Teambrella |
| 7 | Harness |
| 7 | Tembo |
| 8 | Atmos Home |
| 8 | Presence.io |
| 8 | Docola |
| 8 | Script |
