ExitEvent’s first Tech Madness is officially over, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the community engagement. Total voter count was 10,000 through six rounds, and it was amazing to see how many companies promoted the bracket through social channels.

Congrats again to Wilmington’s Brilliant Sole—how fitting that a fellow NC team won the actual NCAA championship. Virtual Reality, still in its nascency, will be a fascinating technology to watch grow, and Brilliant Sole has some important traits of a successful brand: a differentiated product, strong and simple messaging and, of course, its location in North Carolina. (Here’s a profile on the company.)

We hope you enjoyed voting. There certainly were some fun, unexpected results:

—The Final Four was comprised of bootstrapped #14 and #15 seeds
–No #1 seed made the Sweet 16
–At least in Tech Madness, North Carolinians prefer physical products over software, with three of the Final Four in that category.
–Brilliant Sole had a precarious path to the win. In the first round the team beat #3 Windsor Circle by a small margin—54% to 46% of the vote. In the 2nd round they beat #6 The Cloud Factory with 52% of the vote. After that, they won handily, winning 64%, 79%, 66% and 79% in subsequent rounds.

Check out the full bracket here (and click on the image for a larger version):

 

Tech Madness will return next March. We’ll re-open submissions then, so expect the bracket to be a mixture of old and new companies.

Thanks again for following along! And please email any feedback on the contest to laura@exitevent.com.

Until next year!