This afternoon, Launchpad LA — the business mentoring effort in Los Angeles which is being spearheaded by Mark Suster — just announced its list of participants for its second class (Launchpad LA v 2.0). The mentoring group includes pretty much a who’s who in Los Angeles in technology entrepreneurship and startups. Here’s further details on the companies from LaunchpadLA:

·         AccessDNA – AccessDNA is an online consumer resource for genetics.  The company combines high-quality information about genetics, with tools that use family health history to help identify personal disease risk.  By providing insight into the genetics of disease, as well as access to relevant testing, services, and support, AccessDNA helps people better understand how genetics can impact their healthcare and lifestyle decisions.

·         AwesomeBox – AwesomeBox, currently in stealth mode, has created a marketplace for flash sales.  The company helps drive companies thousands – even millions – of new customers, by providing a platform for creating fun offers at unbelievable prices.

·         Circle Street – Circle Street has developed a cloud-based platform for merchants to publish to multiple distribution networks, including social, mobile and email.  Today merchants have to partner and interact with multiple networks in order to publish messages and promotions on mobile and social networks.  Circle Street’s aggregated network can help merchants be more efficient and effective with their time by publishing out to an aggregated network.  The company’s analytics comprehensively monitors customer behavior over multiple networks, including location-based mobile networks.

·         DataPop – DataPop was founded by performance marketing veterans from Yahoo!, DoubleClick and Amazon.com to help marketers deliver the right ad message every time.  The DataPop team is building a platform that enables real time creation and delivery of highly engaging ads to consumers on a massive scale.  Its technology automatically generates the best combination of landing pages, targeting and ad copy for every individual product and offer available on a marketer’s website and in their local stores.  DataPop launched its initial Search Marketing application across Google, Microsoft and Yahoo late last year and leading marketers and agencies are seeing breakthrough results.  On average the platform is generating 30+% increase in conversions and 15% decrease in cost per lead.

·         Gendai Games – Gendai Games is an innovator in modern game design.  The company develops game creation technologies enabled by the social web.  Its technologies provide powerful tools and processes ideal for the creation of sophisticated games and interactive media.  The company pairs its unique technology with social media to bring game creators and players together.  Gendai Games’s mission is to advance game design and foster a community that empowers creative individuals everywhere.

·         Gyroscope Technologies – Gyroscope Technologies is rethinking the way consumers interact with their mobile phones.  The company’s first offering will be a mobile retail commerce platform.  The product focuses on the in-store behavior of consumers.

·         Laughstub – Laughstub helps consumers find live comedy shows that they would like with local listings, user reviews, video previews, favorite comedian alerts, and more.  The company also helps venues and comedians bring more people to their shows through a powerful toolbox including an embeddable ticketing system, social media management applications, email hosting and more.

·         MOVIECLIPS.com – Launched December 2009 in Santa Monica, MOVIECLIPS.com is a premium online video destination offering audiences the largest and most diverse collection of movie scenes.  MOVIECLIPS.com allows fans to find, watch and share more than 12,000 movie clips from the libraries of the major Hollywood studios.  The company has opened its API to approved sites for distribution and approved developers who want to build games, etc. with the clips.

·         Para Ti Novia – Para Ti Novia is a LA based wedding website for the Hispanic market.  Founded in 2009 by Candice Lapin, Para Ti Novia is part of a rapidly growing trend of bilingual media aimed at catering to both English and Spanish speaking Hispanics through both the web and mobile applications.

·         ShopNation – ShopNation, currently in stealth mode, is a next generation shopping platform launching in 2010.

We’ve previously run interviews with Lee Essner at AccessDNA, and (via our Texas site), Michael Augustin at Gendai Games.

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Entrepreneurship by Benjamin Kuo