Today I am headed to the first LaunchBoxDigital demo day for the Washington, D.C. based startup incubator program. The program is similar to TechStars which I visited in Boulder, Colorado in March. The following nine portfolio companies received funding as part of the program and will be demoing at the event. This article will offer you a preview.
The nine LaunchBoxDigital startups demoing include:
BuzzHubb - Founded by Satjot Sawhney and Ashish Kundra, BuzzHubb is a lightweight, mobile-enabled groups product geared towards college student. Similar to the way that Facebook started solely on college campuses BuzzHubb can only be used by students as well. Users can create or join groups which are called "hubs" and they can be accessed on a mobile device, the Web or via their social network. There are a few different types of hubbs, for various types of group communication scenarios. BuzzHub looks a lot like what Twitter would look like if it added groups functionality.
heekya - Founded by David Adewumi, Kwasi Nti, Rasvan Orendovici and Avner Ahmend, heekya enables users to easily manage and share all of their digital media in the form of a dynamic ongoing story. Heekya offers a rather large set of features as it aims to create a database of social storytelling by creating multimedia slideshows with timelines and mapping features. Heekya reminds me of a blend of Bluestring and OurStory.
JamLegend - Founded by Andrew Lee, Arjun Lall and Ryan Wilson, JamLegend brings free, in-browser interactive music online. JamLegend is like a free online version of Guitar Hero or Rock Band. It offers unlimited songs and gives indie music artists an opportunity to upload their music and become part of the game. With the popularity of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band it will be exciting to see how JamLegend is received - it could be a huge success. Check out the video below for a quick demo of JamLegend.
Koofers.com - Founded by Michael Rihani, Glynn LoPresti, Patrick Gartlan and Doug Feit, Koofers offers provides an interactive community that serves the academic needs of college students through information sharing. Koofers looks to create a historical repository for old coursework and study materials. Students can also rate professors and courses.
MpowerPlayer - Founded by Michael Powers, MpowerPlayer platform drives purchases of mobile games by enabling consumers to browse, experience, sample and purchase mobile games and applications via their PC prior to making a purchase decision. MpowerPlayer created a Facebook application called the Arcade which helps to surfaces mobile games on Facebook in your news feed and allows users to sample mobile games in the browser. MpowerPlayer Aracade helps make it easy to browse, sample and recommend mobile games on Facebook.
MyGameMug - Founded by Raymond Lau and Erik Yao, MyGameMug is a global community that connects similarly-minded gamers together through a proprietary matchmaking algorithm. Basically, MyGameMug is like Match.com for online video game junkies. It also offers online groups, communities, events and rating around games.
Razumé - Created by Sam Blum, Kyle Stoneman (Founders) and Ryan Geist, Razumé is a resume review community that provides job seekers career management tools and immediate expert feedback on their resumes. Razumé offers a great way to get feedback to improve a resume. Users can also search for jobs and apply directly from the site.
ShareMeme - Founded by Ahson Wardak and Luc Castera, ShareMeme allows you to easily communicate with friends on social networks, IM, email, and SMS. ShareMeme creates a place to share links, polls and invites with your friends.
Zadby - Created by Tim McLaughlin (Founder) and Beau Brewer (General Manager), Zadby offers an online platform for video producers to promote a product via product placement. Zadby gives advertisers an easy way to create and distribute viral video to targeted audiences on a pay-for-performance model.
This is just my initial take on the nine startups demoing. I may have a different opionion after seeing them in person. LaunchBoxDigital co-founder John McKinley also offered his preview up today.