Exactly six months ago, five teams from around the globe were getting ready at Google Campus in London to make their last pitches at the final of the MBJ LaunchPad 2015 competition. In front of an audience of hundreds of people, they were trying to win the top prize – a £100k equity-free investment to develop their business. We reached out to some of the finalists to see where they are now and how their business ventures are progressing.
MoonROK – Winner
MoonROK is one of the only English language media outlets dedicated to Korean pop music (K-Pop) in the world. K-Pop has one of the largest fan bases of any genre in the globe, with many of its artists boasting hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions of views on their videos.
Ever since winning the MBJ LaunchPad competition MookROK have gone from strength to strength. Not long after returning to their native USA from the MBJ LaunchPad final, MoonROK won the KIC Challenge competition in Washington D.C. As well as a $10,000 cash prize, the team won one year of office space and accommodation in South Korea. They are due to move their headquarters from New York City to Seoul in June 2016.
MoonROK also recently returned to the UK in April 2016, having got to the final of yet another competition. This time it was for the Business Rocks event in Manchester. Whilst the team did not win the overall cash prize of £50,000 for their category, they came fourth out of several hundred finalists. Being in the UK also gave MoonROK the chance to pop into the MBJ office for a couple of days and work alongside our growing team.
To top things off, the team look set to have closed their first seed round of investment. As they continue their upward trajectory, we strongly advise you to keep a close eye on MoonROK.
Beep Beep – Runner Up
BeepBeep, like most startups, have gone through several makeovers. The team has now found a winning formula: “On Demand Valet Parking”. They are initially focused on serving the city of Amsterdam, and soon, The Hague with further expansion planned in the pipeline.
When the Beep Beep team came to London for the final of MBJ LaunchPad the team was comprised of three co-founders: Scott Moran, Karan Bagai and Shashank Batra. Since graduating from their MBA program, Karan accepted a sought after position with an investment bank. Shashank took a position at one of the Big Four accounting and consulting firms. Scott has remained CEO of Beep Beep and has since taken on three (soon four) new members.
The revised Beep Beep business model offers users the ability to drive up to anywhere in city centre, call a Beep Beep Expert Valet, who will whizz along on a scooter to meet the user and park their car for them in a local partner garage. When the user needs their car back, Beep Beep will guarantee its return within 15 minutes to anywhere in the city centre. Users can track the whereabouts of their car through the app to ensure that it is where it’s supposed to be at all times.
Avennu – Runner Up
Avennu is an online market place based in New York City whose vision is to connect professionals and businesses to urban spaces suited to their unique needs. They cater for a multitude of potential requirements such as weddings, photo shoots, charity events, and many more.
Since MBJ LaunchPad, Avennu has made big strides, partnering with London based Sofar Sounds. Sofar Sounds has a large presence in NYC hosting over 100 intimate music shows per month. Furthermore, Avennu has partnered with a 2000 sq. ft. event space in downtown Manhattan. They plan to use the space as a laboratory to try out several new technologies that will strengthen the business and its product offering.
Avennu are currently seeking new partners that share their commitment to community and creative industries.
After the huge success of MBJ LaunchPad 2015, the project was put on hold for 2016. This enabled the MBJ team to focus on growing the company internationally and to implement MBJ’s new Websites As A Service (WaaS) product model. Waas offers high quality, fully managed websites to small and medium sized businesses at affordable rates.
MBJ LaunchPad will make a big comeback in 2017. The MBJ team has already begun putting some stokes in the fire so keep an eye out for updates!
