Everyone loves an underdog, right? That’s the case for TBJ readers, who voted to advance all four underdogs in the second round of the second annual Triad Inno Madness bracket challenge.
The underdogs – which are largely young, diverse companies – overtook the higher-seeded participants in what will make for an interesting semifinal round, open now for voting.
Triad Business Journal unveiled its second Inno Madness bracket last month, with 16 local startups competing in the friendly challenge where readers vote on one, wide-ranging question: Who would you invest in?
The ultimate goal of Inno Madness is to bring awareness to the Triad’s thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and some of the region’s coolest new companies. If you missed them, you can find a full list describing the participants below.
Underdogs upset in Round 2
In the second round, a total of 375 votes were cast.
All but one of the matchups were decided by less than 70 votes. Three Stands Recovery Wear, the #13 seed, took out #5 Beam Dynamics by 91 votes. #14 Little Light Series ousted #6 Unbox the Dress and #10 Fuse Oncology upset #2 Storage Scholars.
In the tightest race in this round, #16 Finger Flyer held on over #9 Plakous Therapeutics by 35 votes.
See the final margins for each Round 2 matchup here.
Semifinals voting opens
Click here for the semifinal matchups and to cast your vote.
The semifinal round began this morning and ends at noon on March 7, with the finalists going head-to-head in the championship round from March 8 to March 14. All results will be announced online; a Triad Inno Madness champion will be crowned March 15, with a feature in a special section in the March 17 print edition.
Find the contest rules here.
Reach out to Triad Inno reporter Lillian Johnson (ljohnson@bizjournals.com) with any questions.
Meet the players (in alphabetical order)
- Beam Dynamics – Beam Dynamics offers a cloud-based product intelligence platform, called BeamON, for the media industry that bridges communications between manufacturers and product owners. The platform helps businesses manage the lifecycle of their production inventory in a single-user interface, helping to lower costs and reduce operational downtime.
- Finger Flyer – Created by a High Point University student, Finger Flyer offers educational STEM kits to build handheld quadcopter drones with gesture-controlled sensors. The kits are paired with a week’s worth of lab activities based on physics and drone technology, as well as answer keys and suggested grading rubrics for teachers.
- Fuse Oncology – The first spin-off from Cone Health Ventures, Fuse Oncology provides consulting services and a software platform, S!GNAL, to improve the quality and efficiency of radiation oncology practices. S!GNAL automates revenue cycle verification and closely monitors both structured and unstructured data to close the gap between clinical experience and billing.
- Insightful Branding – Using artificial intelligence, analytics and consulting, Insightful Branding helps organizations create a unified, seamless and engaging experience for their customers and employees. Its software, Clariview, is a fully customized customer-facing interface and data cloud providing real-time insights to aid companies in maximizing customer interaction and sales revenue.
- Little Light Series – Little Light Series aims to energize, enlighten and empower kids. CEO Sterling Freeman authors and illustrates his own series of children’s books; visits local schools; and operates an online arts education program called Little Dreamers Character Art. The art classes help young children build confidence while using numbers, letters and shapes.
- Live Furnish – Live Furnish’s software allows customers and companies – like furniture firms – to create 3D images and video for e-commerce, social media and internal communications without the need for time-consuming and costly product photography or computer-generated imagery (CGI). Its software is completely on the Internet, so clients do not have to download a desktop application.
- Minerva Lithium – A spin-off company of UNC-Greensboro, Minerva Lithium has created a proprietary lithium-trapping filter that is more effective in removing trace amounts of the valuable chemical from wastewater than typical methods. The polymer in the company’s nano-filter is naturally abundant, renewable and relatively inexpensive.
- Novalent – A biotechnology engineering firm, Novalent’s patented technology helps protect against bacteria. Its spray-on sanitizer is non-toxic and continuously kills germs for up to 90 days on surfaces and up to 24 hours on human skin after application. The sanitizer can also be used as a protectant against SARS-Cov-2.
- Novex Innovations – A contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), Novex Innovations manufactures and develops processing for biomedical companies, working specifically with biologics, medical devices and drug products. The company also offers large-scale manufacturing as well as infrastructure services, such as packing, shipping and invoicing orders.
- Optera – Another UNCG spin-off, Optera’s proprietary product, UBeeO, is a pheromone cocktail that can be applied to beehives to detect for infection from a deadly parasitic mite called the Varroa destructor. UBeeO can be used by beekeepers as a selective breeding tool and informant of mite management strategy.
- Plakous Therapeutics – A regenerative medicine company, Plakous Therapeutics has developed a patented biotherapeutic to prevent necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a rare pediatric gastrointestinal disease. Its product, Protego-PD, is an orally delivered mix of anti-inflammatory and developmental proteins made from the post-delivery human placenta that mimic amniotic fluid.
- smoodi – smoodi offers healthy, fresh and customizable on-the-go smoothies by providing retail stores its proprietary self-cleaning blender. The blender fits on top of a counter and allows consumers to self-serve their desired frozen smoothie cups. The company also sells pre-packaged smoothies to be blended at home.
- Storage Scholars – Created by Wake Forest University students, Storage Scholars is a pickup and delivery storage service just for college students. The company uses custom-built software to communicate with and notify customers in real-time, hires local college students at its partnering institutions and provides free boxes and packing supplies.
- Three Strands Recovery Wear – Three Strands Recovery Wear’s product, the Resilience Bra, was designed with feedback from physicians, surgeons and patients to better serve breast cancer and cosmetic patients recovering from surgery. The bra is adjustable to a patient’s ribcage and chest, has a pocket for drain tubing and will come in a variety of patterns and sizes.
- Unbox the Dress – Unbox the Dress takes vintage or modern wedding dresses and upcycles them into new products, including garments, accessories, home décor and keepsakes. The company also launched a “Save to Transform” program where Unbox the Dress cleans, repairs and stores wedding dresses as brides accumulate points for future redesigns.
- UpStream Healthcare – UpStream offers a support platform that facilitates new ways for independent physicians, pharmacists and nurses to work together by embedding clinical teams in the doctor's office. The company utilizes value-based care models to achieve its goal of prioritizing the health and independence of patients, particularly older adults with multiple chronic conditions.
