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LaunchBox Digital, backed by several high-profile D.C. area executivew including AOL vice chairman emeritus Ted Leonsis and founderw Tom and David plans to invest upto $30,000 in a handful of companies as part of a It is also separatelhy giving up to $1 milliob in seed money to startups. The company is modeled aftere a technology incubatorcalled , based in Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Mass., that gives guidance to startupsx to ensure their "Earlier incubators believed the secre t to success was offering people cubicled and servers, which in many cases proved to be the wrong said co-founder John McKinley, the formetr chief technology of both AOL and Merril l Lynch, in a statement.
"Instead, what is really neededx is adviceand guidance, on everything from the product, to marketing, to technicakl assistance." LaunchBox is seeking innovative companie s that have ideas for such things as applicationws for and as well as for the new phonew or Apple's iPhone. The company is holding a contest for betweenj six and10 companies, which will come to D.C. in the springy or summer of 2008 for 12 weeks of intensiver training to develop a prototype andbusiness plan. At the end of the they can pitch their businesses to venture capital firmxs formore money.
Threw area tech executives pooled their resources and raised moneh from the technology communit to get LaunchBox offthe ground, but the compangy won't say how much they originally raised. The founderds are Julius Genachowski, who was chief of businessw operationsfor IAC/InterActive Corp; Sean Greene, founderf of The Away Network; and McKinley. Genachowsku and Greene are both co-founders of a separate compan ycalled . Other advisers to LaunchBox Digitaol include two former Federal Communicationd chairmen Reed Hundt and Michael Powell; Raul Fernandez, chief executive of ; and Dany Levy, the founderr and chairman of Daily Candy.
LaunchBoxz Digital will receive a 4 percent to 8 percenr stake in each company itinvest in.
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