Pass It Down

Pass It Down is a digital storytelling company that provides a cloud-based platform for creating online exhibits, digital collections and touch-screen interactives. Customers select from a library of templates and upload video, photos, audio, text and PDF files, arranging them via drag-and-drop into interactive exhibits such as timelines, story maps, mosaics and crowdsourced story collections. Exhibits are published from the cloud and scale automatically across phones, tablets, computers and touch screens without coding; the company states the platform is ADA and WCAG 2.1 compliant and that new features are added monthly.

Alongside the exhibit platform, the company offers storytelling strategy consulting, digital halls of fame for sports programs ranging from high schools to professional teams, and digital gameday programs. In 2021 it began building Iconic Moments, described as the first eco-friendly NFT marketplace for museums and cultural institutions, which works with a network of history, sports and art museums and archives to mint NFTs of art, video clips, audio clips and other artifacts drawn from museum collections as a digital preservation method.

The company is headquartered at 100 Cherokee Blvd., Suite 120, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and has also been described in press coverage as Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based.

Founding story

Christopher (Chris) Cummings founded Pass It Down in spring 2015 in Chattanooga after his mother, Barbara, developed multiple sclerosis and early-onset dementia during his teenage years, leaving her stories unrecorded. He set out to build a way for families to capture and pass down memories and stories. Cummings, an attorney with political science, international relations and law degrees from Louisiana State University, had previously co-founded Woople and served as CEO of SwiftWing Ventures.

Business model

Pass It Down sells subscription access to its cloud-based exhibit design and touch-screen platform, with plans advertised starting at $167 per month, and serves organizations ranging from small museums and historic sites to large brands and municipalities. It also offers storytelling strategy services and is building Iconic Moments, an NFT marketplace through which museums and cultural institutions can issue digital versions of collection artifacts.

Recurring subscription pricing for the digital exhibit and touchscreen platform, advertised from $167 per month, supplemented by services and the planned Iconic Moments NFT marketplace for museums and cultural institutions.

Traction

The company reports millions of impressions and operations across three or more continents, and cites clients including Porsche, Procter & Gamble, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the East Baton Rouge Public Library, The History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff, and the municipalities of Portland, Chattanooga and Sarasota. By mid-2016 the company had raised $235,000 and had one undisclosed private investor.

Latest developments

In September 2021 Pass It Down announced a round of nearly $2 million led by VentureSouth with participation from Cultivation Capital, Techstars, Red Stick Angels and Acadian Capital Ventures, intended to launch Iconic Moments in the fourth quarter of 2021 and to fund hiring and marketplace enhancements.