It’s Wharton vs. Drexel at Inc.’s Coolest College Startups contest

On the first round of Inc.’s Coolest College Startups competition, a startup March Madness of sorts, there are two Philly companies squaring off against each other.

Drexel University’s Boost Linguistics — an AI-fueled platform that lets marketing teams crank out more engaging content — got matched up with Wharton’s Twine — the providers of an analytics software platform to reduce employee turnover through internal mobility — in the competition, which will whittle down a batch of 16 startups to a final winner.

Was pitting the two Philly companies against each other on purpose? No other bracket seems to be paired up geographically and we thought that was kinda, er, odd. However, Inc.’s features editors Diana Ransom assures Technical.ly that the two Philly companies being matched together was “totally happenstance.”

In any event, voting for just one of these companies is kinda difficult for us.

On the one hand, earlier this year we asked you to keep an eye on Boost Linguistics — along with Orai, another Drexel-born language-related app. Both companies won a six-month residence at the Baiada Institute for Entrepreneurship incubator, mentoring from Drexel faculty and $15,000 in funding as part of their own internship co-op programs.

On the other hand, Twine has also been in our radar. We named them one of four Penn startups to watch in 2017 and spotted them as one of two notable runners-up with Philly ties at the Change the World Competition, part of Forbes Under 30 Summit, held in Boston.

Both are solid startups with lots of promise. Below is the link to vote. We just ask that you, please, vote your conscience.