Two Startups To Watch
Two apps that'll completely change the way we feel safe and watch our shows are hitting the market. And they're both DC-area companies.
If you’re addicted to Game of Thrones or other binge-worthy shows, then you’ve probably avoided social media before watching episodes you’ve missed. ("No Spoilers" is our new national anthem.) GOPOP.TV cofounder Eugene Evans says it doesn’t have to be that way. His Leesburg and Charlottesville, Va.-based company quietly released an early version of its iPhone app a month ago that lets viewers connect with friends and fans of popular shows and view comments posted to the GOPOP.TV platform corresponding with the point in time of the show being watched. Shows are enhanced, Eugene explains, as fans create and share tracks of user-generated content such as background info on actors and other trivia.
Eugene, who will be presenting at MAVA’s TechBUZZ next week, comes from a digital entertainment and video game background and launched the company with colleagues from the same field. (Hopefully this photo isn't a preview of how things will go down at TechBUZZ.) We often turn to social media to talk about what we’re watching, but Eugene argues that those platforms are more focused on instant communication and not enhancing on-demand viewing. The team wants to drive native content promotions, commerce, and partnerships with show producers to generate revenue. The startup, which won Loudoun County’s first iNNOVATE LoCo tech pitch competition this week, is also raising a seed round.
SafeLife cofounders Morgan Wright and Bonnie VanAlstyne are developing an app and website for release this summer that makes people aware of crime and personal safety issues like floods and fires taking place within their community. The app pulls info from many sources, news stories to police data, and geocodes for a person's location. It also provides a map of where registered sex offenders live and work and sends alerts on various emergencies like new registered sex offenders and missing children and seniors. SafeLife also uses the public to crowdsource suspicious activity, crimes, and emergency events, so someone on the scene could report police activity and people within a half mile or people who have the location saved in their profile could receive that alert. The company was the second winner in this week's iNNOVATE competition.
Morgan was inspired to launch the Leesburg, Va.-based company after 18 years working in state and local law enforcement and realizing that the public didn’t have access to timely information about crime in their communities. He met Bonnie at a networking event and launched the company, funded through friends and family, in January. Morgan says SafeLife will be marketed through partnerships with large member organizations and consumer brands to acquire and scale the number of users as quickly as possible. Users can get a basic, one location version of the app for free and then subscribe for more locations and alerts.
