Book-e, a start-up focused on the burgeoning e-sports betting market, was the overall winner at Start-up Weekend in Dublin.
E-sports currently attracts an audience of 134m viewers and this is set to grow.
E-sports is one of the fastest-growing marketplaces in the world, allowing fans to bet on gamers. The phenomena packs out entire stadiums in the US and Asia and is about to break on European shores.
Book-e will allow fans to bet against one another as well as interfacing with bookie chains to allow punters to place bets.
The second prize winner was PhotoCAD, creator of an amazing app for architects that lets users take pictures of buildings or objects and convert them into accurate, proportionate CAD files.
Third prize went to Comrade, a social app aimed at people who travel to new cities that allows them to connect with fellow travellers as well as identify things to do while in the city.
There was a distinct increase in participation by female CEOs at the latest Start-up Weekend, with five out of 11 pitches made by female founders.
An honourable mention went to Fit My Bits, a start-up that allows women to shop privately for bras.
Start-up Weekend began on Friday afternoon when scores of would-be entrepreneurs arrived at Google’s offices in Dublin. By Saturday they had organised themselves into 11 teams of 90 people and got to work building minimal viable products, doing market research and building software.
Last night, 200 people came along to cheer the teams on.
This year’s pitches were distinctive due to the fact that there was a marked increase in female leader participation – five out of the 11 pitches were led by female CEOs.
Their efforts were noted by Start-up Weekend’s Alexjandro Saucedo, who thanked Gene Murphy and the team of volunteers for organising the event and Google and Bank of Ireland for sponsoring it.
“Start-up Weekend’s mission is to inspire and educate. You came here and built a start-up and hopefully they will last.
“You came here as strangers, ideas were pitched and start-ups were created.”
Alexjandro Saucedo from Bloomberg and Start-up Weekend on stage in Dublin last night.
