In the wake of the charred devastation wrought by the Witch Creek fires in San Diego, [CA] two years ago that week, Dina Moskowitz and Marc Zimmerman saw something that made them wonder.

Was there any service available to the homeowners that could have protected them from losing highly valued items, such as birth certificates, memorabilia, family photos and videos and business records?

They found that plenty of services offered digital document storage for large firms. But they found nothing for homeowners needing digital storage of their documents and interior videos that could be privately accessed via the Web.

Combining their experience in real estate, business and technology, they came up with the view for their San Diego-based startup, Critical Digital goods Inc.

“It was clear society did not have the best way of organizing and taking care of their most vital data,” Moskowitz says.

Their research showed that 19 percent of Americans have been evacuated from their homes

Virtual File Cabinets

By May of last year, company CEO Moskowitz and President Zimmerman raised “about six figures,” in start-up cash from friends and family, and developed a prototype. In August they rolled out their main product, HomeDataGuard Online File Cabinet.

It allows users to scan, upload, organize and retrieve all their home-based valuable info. Password-protected items such as documents, videos, images and any other digital files can be retrieved at any moment from any computer with Web access.

With graphics and sound effects of a traditional metal file cabinet, HomeDataGuard is designed to put the non-technical at ease.

The company charges $99 to video the rooms of a home for digital storage, and $150 for two hours of home-based document scanning. To put the documents in a secure hosted server online, it charges $4.95 a month or $49.95 a year.

Marketing efforts have begun with direct mail, public…

Original post by dhiram