versions for Android and iPhone will be released shortly. So far, AdaptivElite is mostly self-funded, aside from small awards from the Get Launched pitch competition and WSU’s Warrior Fund. Drummond also plans to apply for the state’s film tax credits, which video game studios are also eligible for.
Drummond is the kind of young entrepreneur Bill Green says the LaunchPad was designed for: Someone who was mulling over a potentially great idea, but wasn’t sure how to get it out of his head. “Not all of these ideas will become companies,” Green cautions. “But without LaunchPad, where would they have gone? This creates an opportunity for students and alumni to imagine starting something and to begin to have a conversation.”
Drummond and AdaptivElite are staying in Detroit, mainly, he says, because the incentives are too numerous not to. He’s assembled a team of seven people to get the company off the ground, and these days he spends a lot of time calling businesses that might want to offer game players discounts.
“It’s a powerful gesture of hope,” Green says of Blackstone LaunchPad and the startups it’s helped hatch. “It says you can make a life here. Detroit is one of America’s great cities. You have every reason to be hopeful, especially when Wayne and Walsh are doing such a superb job of changing the culture at their schools.”
