TORONTO – Just as Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone officially marks one year of operations, the tech incubator has announced another “graduation”.
Social video company LeanIn (www.leanin.com), which Cartt.ca profiled here is the DMZ’s fourth graduate. “With one major client already up and running and another on the horizon, this start-up shows immense potential for success, placing it in the same class as previous DMZ grads,” says the Ryerson press release.
Led by DMZ entrepreneurs Hecham Ghazal (CEO) and Luke Davies (President), LeanIn has created an interactive toolbar that takes all of the latest advancements in social networking and gaming and delivers them to viewers right inside the video. Key features include a patent pending video map, a video heat map and a loyalty program with audience competition at its core. The tool empowers audiences to share, comment, bookmark, and discover and content owners to reach larger audiences in a more meaningful way.
Since moving into the DMZ in May of last year, LeanIn has developed and refined their product and built partnerships with other online video leaders such as The Platform and BrightCove. Now located in their own downtown Toronto office space, the company has launched their technology through Sympatico.ca Video and is exploring a potential partnership with a Canadian broadcaster that was forged through a connection made at the DMZ.
“We are working on something big right now that is a direct result of being in the DMZ,” said Ghazal in the release. “We met an executive from the Canadian broadcast industry on a routine DMZ tour, he was interested in our technology and we’ve been working out a partnership arrangement ever since.”
LeanIn is one of 24 start-ups incubated and accelerated at the DMZ and joins TeamSave, Burstn and 121 Live Agent in the DMZ’s class of 2011.
Opened in April 2010, Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone (DMZ) is a multidisciplinary workspace for young entrepreneurs infused with the energy and resources of downtown Toronto. Set atop Yonge-Dundas Square, this hub of digital media innovation, collaboration and commercialization is home to both entrepreneurial start-ups and industry solution-providers. With access to overhead and business services, students and alumni can fast-track their product launches, stimulating Canada’s emerging digital economy through spending and job creation.
In its first year of operations, the DMZ helped more than 110 innovators to incubate and accelerate 24 start-ups and to launch 49 projects.
