First place winner, Ink’d Greetings
The Arizona Commerce Authority, in partnership with Venture Madness, announced three winners for the 2025 Venture Madness Conference.
Arizona’s longest-running pitch competition, Venture Madness by Invest Southwest features early stage and emerging growth companies and offers participants exclusive access to the region’s most active, accredited angel investors and venture capital firms. At the event held on April 3 in Tempe, companies competed in head-to-head pitches.
This year’s competition featured 16 finalists selected from a pool of 125 applications. Following presentations, the judges selected three winners, with first place winning $12,500; second place winning $7,500 and third place winning $5,000.
The 2025 Venture Madness winners are:
- 1st Place: Ink’d Greetings, a Phoenix-based automated greeting card kiosk startup. Users can browse hundreds of designs, personalize, and add gift cards to their greeting cards at one of their kiosks located in Arizona and nationwide.
- 2nd Place: HemaSense, a Flagstaff-based medical device manufacturing startup. HemaSense is developing an access site monitor which is used during patient recovery to provide early alert bleed detection.
- 3rd Place: Parent Projects, a Tempe-based media and technology platform where family, friends and professionals who are advocating on behalf of a senior citizen can connect with senior-oriented businesses.
“Congratulations to this year’s exciting Venture Madness winners,” said Sandra Watson, President and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority. “Each year, Venture Madness showcases Arizona’s vibrant innovation ecosystem and highlights outstanding startups. We’re proud to continue to partner with Venture Madness to support our talented entrepreneurs.”
“We are thrilled to welcome the selected presenting companies and attendees to this year’s annual Venture Madness Conference, where innovation and ambition collide,” said Karen Katzorke, President and CEO, Venture Madness. “In addition to the companies pitching for prize money, we are excited to showcase four exceptional growth company presenters. These companies embody the very best of Arizona’s entrepreneurial spirit. Our goal is simple: to highlight and celebrate the brightest minds and most promising startups in Arizona, and to connect them with the investors, resources, networks, and opportunities they need to thrive. We are also incredibly grateful to the Arizona Commerce Authority, our Diamond Sponsor since 2014, for their ongoing support in making this event a success year after year.”
In addition, the Conference featured presentations from Growth Track Companies seeking to continue on their growth trajectory. The companies include digital therapeutics company Aventyn, battery and solar generator systems company NUE, AI-powered heath tech company MiiHealth, and french fry maker Frites Street.
The 2025 Venture Madness Conference featured visionary entrepreneur and author Gregory Shepard as the keynote speaker. The event also included a dedicated Expo area, where Presenting Company Finalists, along with other emerging growth companies, had the opportunity to showcase their products and services to attending accredited investors from across the country.
Venture Madness has helped raise over $1 billion in capital funding since 1992. Previous Venture Madness winners include Ellucian (formerly CampusLogic), Televeda, Homie and SaiOx.
