Meet VidPal before you go to New York City

John Ortega, an entrepreneur and devout traveler, founded VidPal after he was often missing specific, useful information about his destination when he took trips. VidPal”s video request marketplace presents an elegant solution for travelers in a similar position.

VidPal gives travelers the opportunity to request custom New York City-related videos before they visit the city. VidPal users choose a location on a map and describe their request, setting a deadline for it to be completed and a price they are willing to pay.

“It is our hope that VidPal will become the premier on-demand video marketplace in travel for just about any destination in the world,” added Matt Zito, Managing Partner of Travel Startups Incubator.

Travel Startups Incubator has faith that VidPal will take the lead in the on-demand video marketplace in travel and recently announced a $25,000 investment in the startup. Along with Travel Startups Incubator, VidPal has partnered with Crowne Hotel Princeton and New York Tours. The startup also plans future partnerships with ExpoTv and GenVideo. The company’s cloud services provider is Rackspace Cloud.

“Thanks to this platform and our exclusive bidding system, videographers can compete to provide tourists with the best video for their upcoming destination, ” said VidPal CTO Jaime Gonzales. “We strive to accept and quickly process all kinds and formats of videos from users to enable our  community to watch them on their favorite device.”

Ortega further explaind that “VidPal focuses on the travel industry in particular, aiming to help travelers to New York get customized information about their trip. Traveling to new places can be challenging, especially when they are as vast and exciting as New York City. I wanted to give people the chance to make the most of the eyes and ears on the ground, giving them an on-demand, customized service, and an advantage that they have never had before.”

The user-base is expanding rapidly and the service is expected to have 10,000 subscribers by October 2015. The startup is actively recruiting freelancers in New York to fulfill video requests, and is currently running a contest running until the end of August, aiming to find the best New York City video.