Overheard at Mini Seedcamp Barcelona: An Airbnb for fitness clubs, and 3 other notable ideas

Seedcamp, one of Europe’s finest seed investment funds / startup accelerators, was in Barcelona yesterday for a round of Mini Seedcamp.

Myself and other judges, including BDMI VC Tobias Schirmer and Leancamp creator Salim Virani, listened in and provided feedback on the pitches of a number of fledgling companies looking to make it big.

Here are my four favorites, in no particular order, admittedly solely based on the brief pitches fwiw:

Iceber.gs

A visual organization tool primarily designed for creative professionals, Iceber.gs is a beautiful product that is bound to appeal to many looking to research, collect, organize and share content from the Web and beyond.

Currently invite-only, the Iceber.gs team is gearing up for the launch of the service, and is busy baking collaboration tools into the software that will make it easier for groups of people to work together on research, design and whatnot. Definitely one to watch.

Fitboo

Airbnb offers people with room to spare a chance to make money by renting it out to others. Fitboo wants to help fitness and gym club owners and managers do much of the same for the equipment that it is unused far more often than they’d like.

Fitboo is targeting people (and particularly groups of people, and even more particularly groups of women) that are interested in finding and booking specific fitness classes online rather than paying a long-term membership fee.

Its online community marketplace gives people the ability to go to the gym and pay only for what they actually use. It also provides gym club owners and managers with the ability to monetize vacant space, and fitness instructors a chance to increase their earnings.

The Mallorca startup aims to conquer the United States.

Recently

Recently is an app for Web and mobile browsers that allows researchers in the life science sector and medical doctors to stay up to date with what is being published in their specific field of interest.

Essentially a personalized scientific journal, Recently’s algorithm provides the above target group with relevant papers (or at least links to open-access publications or abstracts thereof).

It’s a product for a niche audience, sure, but well-executed.

TutoTOONS

The recent winner of Startup Weekend Barcelona, TutoTOONS wants to make it easier for teachers to create, share and even sell educational games, simple quizzes, animated cartoons and whatnot.

Animations and games can be built using a simply drag-and-drop editor and distributed through a type of app store.

They can subsequently be used in classrooms to complement lessons, and kids can use a wide range of devices and platforms to interact with the apps.

The other startups pitching at Mini Seedcamp Barcelona were Apartum, Erle Robot, Qmaps, Gossip, Groupiest, Joiner and Blinc.

Be sure to check them out, too!

Image credit: Thinkstock