LaunchPad Ignition, the New Orleans-based seed stage accelerator founded by Chris Schultz, announced its first class of startups. Ignition creates a framework to help founders refine their product offering, invigorate their business plans, and raise funding to fuel their growth. Each startup gets up to $25,000 in funding, mentorship from a talented group of mentors, and access to capital. At the end of the program on May 4 & 5, the startups pitch investors at LaunchFest with the hopes of raising more capital and taking their companies to the next level.
Launch Pad Ignition is a proud launch partner of the TechStars Network and a program of Launch Pad, a co-working & incubator space in downtown New Orleans. With 12,000 sq ft of shared workspace and more than 60 companies, Launch Pad is at the heart of the entrepreneurial renaissance in New Orleans and is one of the most successful co-working spaces in the country. Ignition was founded by Chris Schultz, Barre Tanguis, Will Donaldson, Peter Bodenheimer and Mark Graffagnini.
Drum roll please….and the companies are:
Badger – Allows you to share pictures, explore things that interest you, and tag your world. “Badgers,” as the users of the service are called, are able to contextually organize their photos through custom-made “Badges.” Think instagram meets foursquare.
Kin.io – A platform to manage, promote, and sell your films online (and the real world). Provides users with high quality white-label website templates w/ blogging, image & video galleries for streaming their films. Think Netflix for independent film makers. Founded by film expert and New Orleans entrepreneur Benjamin Reece.
Dydra – Although I still have no idea what they really do, Dydra is creating a cloud-based RDF store, a database-as-a-service. Dydra is a multi-tenant data store and query engine. Yeah, I still have no idea. You can ask them yourself here.
Liveset – A platform for watching live concerts on the web + mobile in handsome HD. Liveset is a digital platform presenting live concert events for the web and mobile devices in handsome HD. By placing artists at the center of our model and reimagining the production paradigm that exists around them, we aim to create a more intimate experience for our artists and their fans, all while raising the quality bar for online music content. Liveset was founded by entrepreneur Ross Hinkle and is also in the Idea Village Entrepreneur Class of 2011.
Rayku.com: The Ontario, Canada Rayku is a peer-to-peer micro tutoring website that lets students share and ask for academic help in real time. Rayku takes away the time and distance (and price) limits of traditional tutoring.
GameBuilder Studio: From the Silicon Valley to the Silicon Bayou, GameBuilder Studio is a cross-platform game creation tool built to help professional game makers create sophisticated games with little experience. GameBuilder Studio was founded by Lavon Woods.
More info on these companies in the coming weeks!