Pictured, from left, are Startupbootcamp mentor Tom Millett; Eoghan Jennings, MD, Startupbootcamp Dublin; and Burkhard Blum, managing partner at Bandwith Ventures and Startupbootcamp mentor. Image credit: Jason Clarke Photography
Start-up accelerator Startupbootcamp in Dublin has today named the 10 finalists that will make investment pitches at its first-ever Investor Demo Day.
The start-ups will be aiming to attract the attention of more than 200 investors and mentors who will be in Dublin on 16 May for the investment pitches.
Each of the 10 start-ups is engaged in the three-month accelerator at Startupbootcamp’s Dublin offices on Barrow Street.
The start-ups are:
- Adfaces, a web platform for SME businesses to advertise more affordably on any outdoor media. Its founders hail from Israel and Poland.
- CleverMiles, an Irish start-up that has come up with a system to improve road safety through a three-part strategy comprising driver monitoring, driver education and a system of incentives.
- Easyprove, a new venture from Lithuania, is pioneering software to replace spreadsheets in key processes, such as purchase orders and invoice approvals, for multidivisional SMEs.
- Getbulb, an Irish start-up, is aiming to transform complex data into clear pictures, without the limitations of pre-defined styles of a typical spreadsheet.
- MavenHut is creating casual, skill-based games that can be monetised through one-on-one wagers and tournament play. Its funders are from Romania.
- NotesFirst, a California-founded start-up, is pioneering a secure tablet for doctors to capture and recall patient data on the go. We featured NotesFirst as a tech start-up of the week recently when it was known as RYPL.
- Opara is a Brazilian venture hoping to increase the traceability of perishable produce across the agricultural distribution chain.
- Outline is a new Irish venture focusing on the mining of inboxes for tasks, questions and commitments, and provides managers with complete transparency over emails, tasks and actions across their entire teams.
- Pombai, whose founders come from the US and China, has come up with a marketplace that allows businesses and individuals to buy or sell tickets for regional passenger transport in countries off the beaten track.
- Skynet is an Irish start-up focusing on turning paper-based drilling data into corporate value for the oil and gas industry.
Eoghan Jennings, former CFO at XING, is running Startupbootcamp Dublin. The pan-European network has 150 mentors, including well-known names from Balderton Capital, and DFJ and Mangrove Capital Partners. Startupbootcamp itself is based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jennings said the top 10 teams were selected from more than 150 Irish and international applications.
They are getting mentoring from industry experts, micro investment of €12,000 and access to a network of more than 300 investors from across Europe. The start-ups are also getting six months’ co-working space.
The three-month programme will finish on Investor Demo Day on 16 May, where teams will pitch to investors and mentors to secure follow-on investment.
Dublin start-up scene
“Our Dublin programme attracted huge volumes of world-class start-ups willing to drop everything to relocate and become part of the growing Dublin tribe of successful global innovators,” said Jennings.
He also asserted that Ireland’s fusion of public and private sources means there is more seed funding available than anywhere else in Europe.
“It’s also the only English-speaking economy in the eurozone, at a time when large international VC firms are unwilling to invest directly in non-English speaking companies,” said Jennings.
IBM, Citi Bank and Enterprise Ireland is supporting the Dublin initiative. It is partnered by TechStars in the US.
