PITCH is being launched in association with Aaron Levie’s cloud platform Box.

More than 100 start-ups will pitch in front of heavy-hitters including Zennström, who also founded Atomico; Dyson, who is also an angel investor; Google Ventures and Digg founder Rose; and Scoble.

As well as being in the eye of the storm of 300 investors from top Silicon Valley venture firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, KPCB, Accel, Atomico and Index, the winners will receive a prize consisting of cash and services from professional services firms like KPMG.

This year’s line-up at the Dublin Web Summit on 30 and 31 October will include WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and the founder of Hailo Jay Bregman, and to give things even more of an adrenalin rush, pro-skateboarder Tony Hawk will be at this year’s event.

Start-ups chosen for the summit’s Alpha programme will also be able to exhibit for the price of a regular attendee ticket, the Web Summit organisers said today.

Yet as Isaac Raichyk, founder and CEO of the Toronto-based mobile video social network Keek puts it, simplicity sells. In today’s fast-moving world of never-ending status updates, tweets, Instagrams and privacy scares, there is a yearning for some kind of structure.

A YouGov study out this past week revealed consternation among internet users with social networking sites and constant marketing promotions. The study indicated that the proportion of users who have stopped using social media sites because of invasive marketing is up by 18pc on last year and claimed dissatisfaction with social media marketing and concerns about privacy has led to Facebook usage falling by 9pc in the UK alone.

The word ‘Keek’ is derived from Middle English and means a quick look. Keek – a cross between YouTube and Instagram – centres around users simply recording 36-second video notes on their smartphones or computers’ web cams and sharing them among their friends without intrusive advertising.

“It’s not slowing by any means. We’re working on many different platforms and we’re looking at some of the new games consoles with interest,” Raichyk said.

Video traffic

He could be on to something. Twitter has come up with its social video platform called Vine and a recent forecast by networking giant Cisco predicted that two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2017. Cisco predicted mobile video will increase 16-fold between 2012 and 2017, accounting for more than 66pc of total mobile data traffic by the end of 2017.

So far, the Keek community has surpassed 45m users, with a strong following throughout North America, the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe, Africa and Latin America. In the last four months, it is estimated that 24m new users came on board.

Keek, which is available on Apple, Android, BlackBerry and desktop computers, has recorded 667m visits in the last four months and users have contributed 18m ‘keeks’, which have been watched more than 2.2bn times.

Keek’s demographics reveal that 85pc of its users are between 18 and 25, and 69pc of its users are female.

In recent months, the company raised an US$18m funding round from AGF Investments, Pinetree Capital, Plazacorp and Cranson capital, bringing its total investment raised to US$30m so far.

Raichyk betrayed no sense of modesty when he describes Keek as being “one of the most sophisticated apps in the world right now.”

As evidence, he said that in the past week Keek released a new instant private messaging feature that enables up to 36 users to chat privately in a group using text or video messages.

How people want to communicate is the key, Raichyk said.

“They want simplicity, they want attention but they don’t want noise. If you want to leave a video message for a friend or a community of friends, just do it, if you want to keep it private you can do that, too.”

Working on Keek

Raichyk said the Keek team is focused on building the community, adding features and enabling people to create a lot of video content without having to mess with video-editing tools.

“We believe there is a value in each of those areas and we are executing on these fronts,” Raichyk said.

Raichyk is only interested in growing the community on the site, however. “Monetisation is something we will be looking at maybe next year,” he said.

“We have a unique platform. I believe that social video is going to become increasingly important and relevant in social media over the next two years.

“We are already the dominant player in the social video space and yes, I do believe ‘keeks’ could enter the vernacular just like ‘tweets’.”

Prior to founding Keek, Raichyk founded and was CEO of at least three other technology companies: Kolvok, which pioneered voice-recognition apps and achieved a US$100m market cap of US$100m in 1995; an e-learning company called Simpulex, and a digital video-surveillance company called CertaintyPoint Technologies.

The birth of Keek

Raichyk said the origins of Keek lay in the latter venture.

“I was blogging and playing around with other social networks and I got involved in the concept of utilising security camera videos and I wondered how it would be possible to quickly share security camera videos right after an incident,” he said. “Then I realised that smartphones are more prevalent than surveillance cameras and so I started designing a platform to share video from smartphones.”

Raichyk doesn’t believe the ‘next big thing’ has to come out of Silicon Valley. “Toronto is, after Silicon Valley, No 2 in the world as a hi-tech hub. There’s lots of talent here and we have several universities that turn out a lot of technologists.

“We’ve quickly built an outstanding team of local people and all the development is done in-house so we can rapidly turn out new features.”

Raichyk didn’t want to be drawn on growth projections, either. “The future is not predictable. I’m more interested in what people are doing with the platform. In the UK and Ireland, I’ve noticed a lot of soccer players are signing up and using the platform to communicate with their fans.”

Raichyk said Keek is becoming a world of its own.

“Everything from young people meeting friends, celebrities chatting with fans, it is so broad and so deep. What is amazing is the variety – young people in the Middle East, in Malaysia, minor celebrities in South America to major celebrities in Hollywood.

“People are using it in ways we couldn’t have envisaged.”

A version of this article appeared in the Sunday Times on 16 June

Foster made the comments while delivering the opening address recently at the Clinton Centre International Summer School’s Panel Day in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, entitled ‘Women in Society’.

Foster said Northern Ireland’s female business leaders are role models who can inspire the next generation, and increasing the amount of female entrepreneurship is more important than ever.

“We are all aware of the contribution women make to our economy, whether as business leaders, business people or in politics,” Foster said.

“However, women remain the largest under-represented group when it comes to enterprise in Northern Ireland. Despite the level of female entrepreneurship rising to a record high in 2011, Northern Ireland continues to have the lowest ratio of female-to-male entrepreneurial activity rate (38pc) and is 10pc lower than the UK as a whole.

“That means that there is a vast reserve of untapped potential which could become an even more significant driver of the Northern Ireland economy.”

Foster added that the Northern Ireland Executive’s Economic Strategy sets out the steps required to boost the private sector and improve Northern Ireland’s economic competitiveness.

“We need to encourage a greater number of people to start new, innovative, globally focused businesses and Invest Northern Ireland’s recently launched Regional Start Initiative aims to do just that,” said Foster.

‘Women in Society’ featured an audience of 60 local women and young people, international young leaders from 10 countries, as well as delegates and keynote speakers from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the US.

Women Invent Tomorrow is Silicon Republic's year-long campaign to champion the role of women in science, technology,engineering and maths

With the growing popularity of infographics, GetBulb is on a mission to make data visualisation more compelling via its tool - a HTML5 app that can be downloaded for any modern desktop web browser.

Oliver Mooney founded GetBulb in 2011 and has since taken part in the Startupbootcamp start-up accelerator in Dublin, as well as winning The Irish Times Digital Challenge last year.

So how did the idea for GetBulb come about? Having worked as a data scientist for a number of years, Mooney says he had always struggled to communicate his data findings in a meaningful way.

"Anybody who's ever made a bar chart in Excel has been disappointed with the results," he says. "Excel has a small set of good visualisations, but it's not great at combining them or exporting them."

Visual stories

He set out to develop a tool targeted at helping analysts express data insights visually.

"GetBulb helps people with interesting sets of data tell visual stories about that data. These range from simple visualisations to full-blown infographics."

The charts that GetBulb creates will work across web and print.

Mooney is eager to get across that anyone who can copy and paste can use GetBulb. Indeed, the start-up brought out a fun video earlier this year to pitch how easy the tool will be for users.

"Select your data in any popular spreadsheet, hit copy, switch to our app and paste in your data. You get a great visualisation immediately," he says.

GetBulb has a gallery of templates that people can choose from. Users can also add additional data sets using the app's visual elements and layout tools to tell a larger story or to compare and contrast different sets of data. There is also the scope to add in corporate logos and images.

"When you're done, you can export it for any destination, from high-resolution print graphics to shared interactive widgets for blogs or company web pages," says Mooney.

_{World map data visualisation tool created by GetBulb}

Beta mode

In July, GetBulb is going into beta mode and has already signed up about 500 users to take part in the programme. A few select users will get a peek of the app this month.

"We've already done some initial visualisations for customers using the app."

This year, Mooney ramped up the team at GetBulb and there are now six people working at the start-up, including developers and marketers.

Jane Ruffino is chief marketing officer at GetBulb and she says people can still sign up for the beta programme.

"We want to see who is using the product the most. You will be able to play with it to see how your data looks online," she explains. "It's really to figure out what features to add and what people want."

That done, Mooney says that the team will work to polish the app and get it into the hands of as many people as possible.

As well as this, the plan is for GetBulb to eventually add a system whereby designers can upload and sell their template designs.

"We will have a marketplace because we want to have a really wide range of templates that people will use," explains Ruffino.

Trial customers of Stripe

GetBulb has also been approved as one of the trial customers of Stripe, the online payments engine co-founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison from Limerick.

"We heard through the grapevine that Stripe were looking for beta customers and we jumped at the chance," explains Mooney. "Their product lets us experiment with different payment models cleanly while handling the vast majority of security and privacy concerns for us."

And, in terms of connecting with potential investors, Ruffino says GetBulb has had a lot of interest.

"We're always meeting with investors and talking to people about it and we're also talking to investors about what we should be doing."

At the moment, Ruffino says it's about getting the product out and getting some traction and then going back and doing more focused pitching to investors.

"Everybody wants data but it's actually meaningless on its own. We're making it easier for people to tell stories," she says. "That's why people like infographics. What makes a good infographic is your brain engages in a way that it doesn't with a linear narrative."

When we last spoke to Spark Devices from Minneapolis in America’s midwest last November, the company had just completed an unsuccessful first attempt at raising funding on Kickstarter and was readying itself for a grilling couple of months in China as part of the SOSventures-backed HAXLR8R accelerator programme.

The company set out to raise at first US$250,000 to develop and commercialise its Spark Socket technology, which at the time could be used to turn on and off lights using Wi-Fi. However, when the campaign closed, just US$126,588 was raised from 1,600 backers.

According to Supalla, the time spent in China was used to fine-tune the product away from a single function to being a flexible open-source kit that inventors, DIY or technology enthusiasts can buy in a hardware or electronics store and build any product or device that needs Wi-Fi in it.

I like to think of this as a form of digital Mecanno that we will see more and more of in an age where kits like the Spark Core and 3D printing will see amateurs, hobbyists and experts come up with all kinds of ingenious devices, from sensors to robots, or whatever else the imagination can conceive.

The company went back to the drawing board and through mentoring with entrepreneurs and designers and collaboration with manufacturers in Shenzen,China, the company realised it already had the real product right under its nose, the Spark Core.

The company went back to Kickstarter and has just closed a fund of US$567,968 from 5,549 backers.

Back to the core

A tiny Wi-Fi development board, Spark Core’s Adruino comes with a Wi-Fi radio, an ARM Cortex M3 processor and APIs that make wireless programming relatively easy.

“Over the last six months we embarked on a pretty big pivot and changed the product substantially. The Spark Core was essentially the brain of the Spark Socket that we were using to turn on and off lights wirelessly. The Core was the circuit board.

“So we took that and added the concept of an easy to use platform with internet connectivity. It’s a kit that you can use to create a project or product that has Wi-Fi in it, whether you are an inventor or a hobbyist and you want to create a remote control car or a DIY security system or you are a major business that wants to add Wi-Fi to your products.

“Basically, by going back to the ‘core’, so to speak, we significantly broadened out the potential and we feel we are about to address a marketplace that ranges from the maker-hobbyist to small manufacturers. We feel we’ve identified a gap in the whole internet connectivity area that allows people to do more with an internet connection.

“For example, you can program the Arduino to work with a LED so that if motion is sensed it flashes or when a text message comes in it flashes but there’s a whole load of cool apps that can be built using the device and combining it with the cloud or smartphones.”

He said the plan is to get the technology into retail chains like SparkFun and Radio Shack and make the kits as affordable and available as possible.

“China was an incredible experience. We were able to work with manufacturers in Shenzen who didn’t charge an arm and a leg just to do revisions on the hardware and that allowed us to move fast with product development and software development.

“We went from one application to developing a chipset that could sell, which was pretty cool.”

Longterm, Supalla views Wi-Fi as one dimension to what could be a whole array of products based on different wireless technologies.

“Once you get into it and start experimenting with it, people realise how easy it is to create things and from an educational perspective we’re using Raspberry Pi to programme them on the manufacturing line. We have groups like the Stanford Robotics Club on our test list so the interest is definitely there.”

Supalla said that following the Kickstarter fundraising, the company is well funded to continue to develop its core products and build its community.

“We are talking to some venture capitalists and a lot of folks are interested in the potential so we’ll have to wait and see.

“All we want to do is to help individuals to make cool things and we believe we can help people overcome some of the technical challenges so they can focus on making a great product, whether it is a Wi-Fi connected coffee maker or a home security system.

“The key thing is to make things work.”

In a marathon battle that swept Berlin at Angels Bootcamp and London at the UK’s Founders Forum, at the invitation-only, elite event for global investors and start-up founders from across the globe, Trustev beat off competition from SnapFashion and EcoChain to emerge victorious.

In Berlin and London, Trustev and 12 Tech All Star competitors, including another Irish start-up, Temptster presented in front of some of the world’s top investors, where they were grilled on all aspects of their businesses and technologies.

Trustev provides real-time, online identity verification for businesses operating online so merchants can be certain of who they’re transacting with and eliminate the possibility of fraud. Their proprietary social fingerprinting technology uses the ridges created by a user’s online interactions to determine whether or not they’re a real person and then matches that with other data sources to confirm their identity, while ensuring the user’s privacy at all times.

Solving the world’s online fraud problem

Accepting the award from Kroes, Trustev co-founder and CEO Pat Phelan thanked the team behind Trustev and his co-founder Chris Kennedy for their work to date.

“When Chris and I started off, we had this giant problem of online fraud in front of us. Along the road we’ve been so lucky to find and bring together an amazing team of people and slowly but surely we know that we’ll be able to eliminate the scourge of fraud that’s preventing online commerce from reaching its potential.

“We’d especially like to thank all the other technology start-ups in Ireland who have helped us behind the scenes, without their support and encouragement it would have been a very lonely road to get here; that support is what really makes Ireland the best place in Europe to start a start-up.”

Trustev has raised up to €250,000 in funding so far and is in the process of raising further funding. In recent months, it was it selected for Telefónica’s Wayra programme in Dublin where it was given office space and received a €40,000 injection.

According to Goldman Sachs, estimated turnover from e-commerce in 2014 will hit US$1trn, out of which online fraud will be a US$20bn a year problem.

Trustev employs nine people in Dublin and Cork and expects to employ 20 people by the end of the summer.

In recent weeks, it recruited ex-Facebook data scientist Diarmuid Thoma as its new “data overlord.”

The company has also appointed an influential advisory team that includes Trevor Healy, who sold his company Amobee to Singtel for US$321m last month, digital entrepreneur Dylan Collins, who sold his company Demonware to Activision in 2006 for US$15m and is now leading Box of Awesome in the UK, David Coallier of EngineYard and Anil Hansjee, the former head of M&A at Google EMEA.

Most people know Ben & Jerry’s products for their distinctive flavours and the innovative packaging and marketing with cows on the cartons. The company’s humble origins that included starting out with just a US$12,000 investment are the stuff of business legend.

But one of the hallmarks of the enterprise has been a steadfast concern for the social and environmental challenges the world faces and an unswerving belief that doing right by others is the best way to lead a business.

The ice cream brand has engaged in environmental campaigns – on World Earth Day 2005 the company plonked the world’s largest Baked Alaska outside Congress to protest a vote on oil drilling in an Arctic Wildlife Refuge – as well as campaigns on equal marriage for same-sex couples and better quality education for children.

In Europe the brand has been championing social entrepreneurship via its Join Our Core competition. Last year John Egan from the not-for-profit community of young entrepreneurs in Ireland and the UK Archipelago won the local award for Ireland.

Today, CoderDojo co-founder James Whelton scooped the award along with nine other young social entrepreneurs from around Europe. Two years ago Whelton started up non-profit organisation CoderDojo on a Saturday morning with the simple idea that kids would show up and with the help of mentors learn how to code. Today, more than 16,000 children worldwide are taught to code every Saturday in more than 120 dojos in 22 countries, including places such as LA, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Africa and the Caribbean – all on a voluntary basis.

CoderDojo will receive €10,000 in award money and its brand will feature on Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream cartons in 2014.

Thinking beyond the bottom line

I asked Greenfield what it was about CoderDojo that resonated with the judging panel. “James is a superstar,” he laughs, pointing out Whelton is a little embarrassed at that moment.

“The thing about CoderDojo is at this stage it is still young but it has seen incredible growth and impact. The judges felt that here is a tremendous opportunity to address unemployment in the coming years by having young people not only learn these essential skills but to be able to transfer them to other young people as well.”

I put it to Greenfield that while there is a strong theme of social consciousness at work in Ben & Jerry’s that’s not always the perception people have of businesses in general. If anything in the wake of what has been the longest recession in living memory, I ask him what it is businesses need to do to win back the trust of consumers.

“Well, I think there is a healthy skepticism about businesses among consumers. And that’s good because business often operates in its own self-interest without a concern for the larger community.

“I think if business genuinely and honestly tries to take in community concerns that are beyond and above its bottom line and then consumers can trust those companies. At least, in terms of big business and large public companies that I’m familiar with, their bottom line is their financial bottom line and everything else comes after that.

“Fortunately I think there’s a change coming. In the case of Ben & Jerry’s what we found was that as the company became more involved in community interests the company actually became more successful financially.”

I point out that businesses struggling to survive financially don’t often see the woods for the trees because they are struggling to keep people in jobs and make sales.

“What we sometimes say, Ben and myself, is that there’s a spiritual aspect to business; that as you give you receive and that as you help others you are helped in return.

“I think most people believe that in their heart of hearts and their daily lives but for some reason when they go into a business setting they forget that. But I think it is a spiritual law and it holds true for businesses just as it does for the lives of individuals.”

Technology for the people, by the people

In these technologically advanced times of social networks and smartphones – a world removed from Cohen and Greenfield’s more simpler start-up days in rural Vermont in the late 1970s – I suggest that a more plugged in global community will require businesses to be more accountable for their actions.

“Yes, I think there will be more transparency and more honesty in business because of the democratisation of these social resources. It’s kind of funny when you think about social media in business, which businesses now see as an essential way to reach customers. What businesses find is they now need to be genuine and honest with their customers and that way they become more trustworthy, and that’s now seen as a kind of a business strategy to become honest with your customers. It’s just kind of ironic I guess.

“Some of the entries we are seeing for Join Our Core are about using technological resources to help people around the world create more of a sharing economy and more of a giving economy and it is nice to see the combining of that technology with human concern.”

Greenfield introduces me to Felicity McClean of social entrepreneurship fellowship Ashoka who agrees that younger entrepreneurs are interpreting the internet and social media not solely as a way of making money but ideally to help each other.

“I agree with Jerry, it is a platform upon which young people are creating a solution. I think the theme is wider: connecting people and communities and giving people access to things that they don’t necessarily have access to, be it skills, time, resources.

“There was one platform from the Netherlands this year which was about connecting neighbours so they can lend things to each other. That is actually the way that Generation Y interacts: ‘we don’t want to reinvent the wheel, we’ll go to where our communities are and they are online.’”

Sustainable growth requires stumbling occasionally

^{CoderDojo co-founder James Whelton}

Whelton said that winning the award from a socially-conscious, sustainable business such as Ben & Jerry’s meant a lot to CoderDojo and its supporters. “It’s an organisation we have tremendous respect for – they were able to integrate a sustainable business and have a win-win situation for everything.

“That they can recognise us as a good organisation doing good things and having a good impact is an incredible honour. All the work we’ve done and the entire community that is CoderDojo, particularly with regards to the whole social entrepreneur movement and given the doom and gloom and recession, the times we are in have pushed people to think about improving the community.

Look at so many of the traditional safe professions that aren’t as safe anymore, like law for example, the current economy is actually pushing people to be creative and a bit more altruistic.

“We are just delighted, particularly with the internet being so empowering for people to be able to spread a message or create greater impact not just in our own locale but nationally and internationally. We can equip young people with those social skills and create an environment where they help each other and try and do good.

“Hopefully when they enter the real world as adults they can use these skills to make massive change and impact. Particularly, we’re seeing things like Net Neutrality being challenged and all sorts of forces trying to impeach on our privacy, so as a society we need to better understand the true depth of that so we can better deal with it and oppose it where it needs be.

“On the one hand technology is empowering people, but on the other it is bringing people to the next level,” Whelton said.

I asked Greenfield a final question about the parallels he has seen between starting a socially conscious business in 1978 and being an entrepreneur in 2013. Technology aside, he said there are no parallels “except, just get up off your ass and do it.

“I think one of the elements that is as true now as then was you need to be willing to take a risk and that sometimes something you do won’t work, and that that is okay.

“Doing things that don’t work is an essential part of a learning process and the journey is to keep moving forward and that stumbling is not necessarily stopping.

“You are stumbling with the intention of moving forward more quickly,” he concludes with an enigmatic chuckle.

This is the 31st year of the awards, which aim to encourage students to consider entrepreneurship as a career option.

Along with Enterprise Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland, Cruickshank Intellectual Property Attorneys, Intel and Grant Thornton sponsored the awards.

The prize fund includes €30,000 in cash prizes and €30,000 in consultancy fees to help the winners pursue their business ideas.

More than 400 third-level students from colleges across Ireland submitted entries this year.

MasTech winners

The winning team from CIT was made up of students Nicola O'Mahony, Donal Carey, Kenneth Barry, Damien McAuliffe, Ciaran Malone, Owen Mc Donagh and James Cahill.

They beat off competition from the other entries for their project dubbed MasTech, which has been designed to allow dairy farmers identify mastitis in infected cows quickly. The idea is that farmers will be able to act swiftly to isolate an infected cow from the herd and prevent the disease from spreading.

As well as walking away with €10,000, the CIT students will also get mentoring from Enterprise Ireland and Invest NI to help them develop the commercial viability of their MasTech concept.

Another group of students from CIT won €5,000 for having the most technologically innovative idea for their project Hush Hush Hairdryers.

The emerging and dynamic company of the year award, plus a €5,000 prize, went to Rootie's Crisps team from University College Cork. The Intel prize of a trip to the Intel Challenge Europe Award in 2014 went to XpressLF from Queen's University Belfast.  

John Perry TD, the Minister for Small Business, congratulated the winners at a reception held at NUI Galway today.

He said the awards are an opportunity for third-level students to test their flair for business.  

"They expose them to the challenges and excitement of taking an idea and nurturing it into a serious business proposition," said Perry.

Last year's winning project was DRS.ie, a drag reduction device for trucks that was developed by students at NUI Galway. The company has since gleaned €50,000 under Enterprise Ireland's Competitive Start Fund.

Propertygate was one of 14 start-ups that had been taking part in the LaunchPad accelerator programme at the NDRC since February.

To mark the end of their stint on LaunchPad, the start-ups had been pitching for follow-on investment during the Lift-Off competition today.

Founded by Tony Staunton, Propertygate is a business intelligence and analytics platform for property asset managers.

Via its web-based platform, the start-up has devised a set of management and accounting tools for property managers, property owners, tenants and financiers. The software solution will offer users permission-based access to financial performance dashboards, analytics and reporting.

Propertygate previously won the audience prize in the finals of the Swequity Exchange competition at the NDRC last December.

"Propertygate will now have access to an investment fund that they can use to grow their business. It was also notable the amount of investor interest in the other 13 companies," said Gary Leyden, director of LaunchPad.

The other 13 start-ups that made investment pitches today were 3Funnel, City Hook, CiviQ, EventMama, Fair & Square, Frockadvisor, Stockstreams, Way2Pay, Gigstarter, Gotcha Ninjas, ParkYa, ShotClip and FRED.

Last week, LaunchPad was also ranked as the top IT university business incubator in a global index for business incubators that was compiled by San Francisco, California-based UBI Index.

"We hope that this recognition will help us uncover more ambitious and innovative start-ups," said Leyden.

CoderDojo was formed two years ago by James Whelton, just weeks after he completed his Leaving Cert, with the help of entrepreneur Bill Liao. Whelton started up non-profit organisation CoderDojo on a Saturday morning with the simple idea that kids would show up and with the help of mentors learn how to code. Within weeks, CoderDojos began happening in community halls and office canteens from Arranmore off the coast of Donegal to major cities like London and New York.

Today, more than 16,000 children worldwide are taught to code every Saturday in more than 120 dojos in 22 countries, including places such as LA, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Africa and the Caribbean – all on a voluntary basis.

CoderDojo was one of 10 organisations from across Europe that pitched ideas to 10 of Europe’s top ethical business minds

The winners will have their business logo featured on an exclusive Ben & Jerry’s tub in 2014. In addition, each has also bagged a trip to Ben & Jerry’s birthplace in Vermont, where they will gain additional training and hear from US-based entrepreneurs and socially responsible business leaders.

In addition, they will receive expert business mentoring from Ashoka, the world's leading network of social entrepreneurs.

Incidentally, Whelton last year became the youngest-ever recipient of the prestigious Ashoka fellowship, joining social entrepreneurs that include Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and Nobel Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank.

“Join Our Core has been such an amazing experience. Getting to pitch to a panel that included Jerry Greenfield was one I won’t forget!” said Whelton.

“We’re thrilled to have won and can’t wait to visit Ben & Jerry’s home turf plus see CoderDojo’s logo on a Ben & Jerry’s tub next year!”

The winners were whittled down from more than 430 entries and selected from a final 18 after impressing a panel that included Ashoka’s Paul O’Hara.

Greenfield said: “This year’s Join Our Core competition was extremely competitive. All of the finalists are worthy entrepreneurs with aspirations of operating businesses formed to directly address social or environmental problems in our global community. We loved the ethos and vision of CoderDojo, they are a worthy winner of Join Our Core. I’m looking forward to seeing them on a tub next year!”

WorldDesk has developed a patented technology that leverages an abstraction layer that frees all aspects of a user's Microsoft Windows workspace from the underlying OS and device.

This technology allows the free movement of apps, files and profile between devices, letting users take their worlds with them.

“WorldDesk is a start-up we’ve been working with for a number of years now and this further funding is indicative of a company that is beginning to see some very real traction and success,” Lough Shore Investments principal Danny Moore explained.

Cloud technology has come of age

“It’s also indicative of the wider industry and the ever-changing landscape WorldDesk is operating within,” Moore added.

“Cloud technology has rapidly come of age and organisations of all shapes and sizes, from small to medium-sized enterprises and educational institutes to multinational corporations, are attempting to figure out how best to leverage the technology. With WorldDesk, a user is no longer tied to a specific computer.

“Your entire desktop experience can be accessed securely from anywhere, anytime and on any device. It’s truly paradigm shifting and we’re excited to be a part of that.

“Finally, this investment will allow the team to increase its footprint in both Europe and Asia-Pacific. As an investment firm with a focus and passion for building great businesses in Belfast, we couldn’t be happier with today’s news,” Moore said.

Cloud worker image via Shutterstock

The 11 companies that are making their investment pitches today are Hiri, Trustev, Conker, Popdeem, Paymins, Superbly, Glass Robot Studio, Woopie, BragBet, Numerosity and OptiWi-fi.

According to Wayra, more than 100 investors and influencers are attending today's session.

The incubator opened a Dublin base at O2's headquarters on Sir John Rogerson's Quay last September.

The 11 start-ups that were accepted onto the first programme have each got €40,000 in financing, access to mentors, and workspace for up to nine months.

These companies have closed, or are in the process of closing, more than €3m in investor capital, said Karl Aherne, director of Wayra Ireland.

The Dublin incubator recently completed its call for entries from start-ups to enter its next programme. Wayra will be announcing the 10 winners in early August.

"The Irish start-up ecosystem is incredibly buoyant and is continuing to evolve," said Aherne, who added that this is being driven by the influx of digital multinationals to Ireland, support from Enterprise Ireland and the positive attitude of self-starters.

Started by Telefónica in 2011, Wayra now operates start-up accelerators in 12 countries around the globe. To date, it has financed more than 240 new companies, with funds amounting to more than €7.5m.

FenestraPro is the brainchild of Palmer and Whelan, both of whom have carried out a lot of research in the area of buildings and environmental performance. While Whelan has an MSc in Architecture in Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies from the University of East London, Palmer completed his MSc in Façade Engineering from the University of Bath in 2011.

"It was Dave's research from his master's that led to the concept of FenestraPro," explains Whelan. As to the meaning behind the company's name, fenestra is the Latin for window.

"As part of his research Dave spoke to a number of architects and other building designers, such as façade engineers and services engineers, regarding what had developed, and it was at that point that we knew there was a potential for a commercial application," says Whelan.

Things started to take shape for the business when the duo took part in Enterprise Ireland's New Frontiers programme at DIT Hothouse between 2012 and early 2013.

Niche design software

According to Palmer, FenestraPro provides a simplified niche design software that focuses on one aspect of the design – the façade – and strips away other more complex aspects of the building design such as heating and air conditioning systems.

"The software is for use at the earliest stages of building design, during concept and sketch stages. It ensures compliance with environmental standards and requirements, and therefore enhances green building design," he says.

At the moment, Palmer claims there is an inefficiency in the building design work flow.

"Building regulation compliance for energy performance requires the use of complex software. This happens late in the design process and typically is not usually carried out by the architect, but usually by a third party such as a mechanical engineer."

He says this analysis typically leads to a need for a redesign of the façade to address issues such as overheating from the sun, or excessive heat loss, in order to achieve compliance.

By using FenestraPro, Whelan and Palmer believe that the design tool could save more than 30pc of time spent designing and redesigning façades for non-domestic buildings.

"The software provides a detailed understanding of how key façade design decisions will affect the building's performance, and will allow the architect to maintain control over their design," says Whelan.

Target users

While architectural practices will be the target customers of FenestraPro, Palmer says the software could also be used by consultants who may be involved at an early stage of a building's design, particularly façade and services engineers.

So where is FenestraPro at right now?

The two co-founders have deployed a beta version of the software in a number of architectural practices in Ireland and the UK. So far, Whelan says there has been a very positive response.

"We are using the feedback from our early adopter programme to inform the development of our full version one of the software. We intend being market ready later this year."

He says that one of the key issues right now is recruiting the right team, particularly in the area of software development.

"We are looking for people with a good working knowledge of Java, ready to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in and take the product through its earliest iterations and beyond as our development team strengthens," explains Whelan.

While they have bootstrapped FenestraPro to date, Palmer and Whelan recently secured funding under Enterprise Ireland's Competitive Start Fund.

"This gave us the capital to step things up, and it is starting to pay off," says Palmer. "We are currently in discussions to secure a first round of funding, which we hope to finalise over the coming months."

Product development

As for their plans for the software, Whelan says that they have a robust product development strategy.

"Additional functionality around the increasingly onerous environmental requirements of building performance will be our short- to medium-term objectives, but we also hope to expand to develop offerings for different members of a design team."

He says the key will be to keep the software user-friendly, graphical and simple to use.

"Our initial focus is the Irish and UK market in the first year, moving into mainland Europe and beyond in the following years."

Finally, his advice for other self-starters is to talk to customers early and get a product or service out there so as to open up the opportunity for an informed discussion.

"Customer attitudes and opinions are the best indication on the direction you should be taking. You also need to maintain the flexibility to take on board their feedback, no matter what you know, or think you know yourself," adds Whelan.

The Tech All Stars Final will be hosted in Dublin later this month, on June 19 and 20th, at the Digital Agenda hosted by the European Commission; where the movers and shakers of the tech scene will unveil the tech start-up they voted the best.

The award will be presented by Neelie Kroes, the European Commission Vice President.

Tech All Stars shortlists 12 of the best young European start-ups, inviting them to prestigious business events across Europe and gets them connected to EU funding sources, successful entrepreneurs, and influential individuals.  Participants include entrepreneurs and investors like Reid Hoffman, Mark Zuckerberg, and Richard Branson.

“Tech entrepreneurs have the biggest potential to innovate Europe out of fiscal crisis and re-energise the European economy, so fostering their development makes sense on many levels”, Neelie Kroes said recently.

Trustev, which is focused on detecting and defending against fraud in the burgeoning social commerce space, was recently shortlisted in the TechCrunch Disrupt awards in New York. The company is headed by entrepreneur Pat Phelan and its technology is the brainchild of CTO Chris Kennedy and was recently for Telefonica’s Wayra incubation programme in Dublin.

Temptster is a smartphone app, developed by foodservices entrepreneur Ollie Fegan, which allows restaurants and clubs to instantly promote high-value offers on same-day reservations, when not fully booked, or if there is a cancellation.  

The app, which was launched in February this year, uses GPS technology to identify the user’s location and display all available offers in nearby bars and restaurants.

2013 Tech All Stars finalists

• Trustev - a “social fingerprinting” system to tackle online fraud
• Infantium– a learning technology that personalises education for children
• Snap Fashion  – an online visual search engine for purchasing clothing
• Transmetrics  – an IT product that helps transport companies make their networks more efficient
• Temptster – App with instant offers on local dining out and socialising; user recommendations on where to eat out
• Viewsy – location analytics to help retailers better understand customers behaviour in physical space
• Mist.io – a service for managing and monitoring servers across clouds
• EcoChain – an application that calculates the environmental footprint of your products so you can increase profit in a sustainable manner
• CLYC  – a digital bicycle lock with key-less functions that connects to your smartphone
• Babelverse  – on-demand interpretation of languages available on any device
• SportSquare– a Facebook soccer game startup
• SNTMNT – a tool for capturing and analysing social media buzz for financial markets

Start position image via Shutterstock

Since the grassroots movement was founded in Seattle in 2007, hundreds of Startup Weekends have been hosted in cities around the globe. Just this past March, a Startup Weekend was held in Cork.

The aim is to get an eclectic mix of attendees, ranging from those with a technical or design background to people with a business background, to share their ideas, form teams and work on new start-ups for 54 hours.

Dublin Startup Weekend will take place in Google's EMEA headquarters on Barrow Street, and over 100 people have already signed up for the event, according to Stu Fergus, one of the organisers.

Fergus, who works at Google in Dublin, has organised the weekend along with Floriana Pelagi, Keith Reid, Brian Daly and Russell Banks.

"We still have a few tickets left for designers and developers," explains Fergus. He was one of the attendees at last year's Startup Weekend in Dublin.

"We were happy to pass the 100-attendee mark last week and to get the word out there to more designers. The non-technical tickets went very quickly," he says.

Forming start-ups

As for the Startup Weekend schedule, on Friday evening people will be invited to give a 60-second pitch of their ideas.

Based on these pitches, the other attendees will vote for their favourite start-up ideas.

"Out of the 40 ideas that were pitched last year, 14 teams were formed. We will probably will looking at the same number of teams this year," says Fergus.

Ideally, the goal is to have a good mix of designers, coders and business minds on each team.

On Saturday, 19 mentors will come in to Google to work with the teams and pitch in with advice. Such mentors will include game developer Andrea Magnorsky, co-founder of BatCat Games; Mark Kearns from the NDRC; and Karl Aherne from Wayra Ireland.

"We will also have a couple of pitching workshops on the Saturday to give the team leads a chance to do a dry run of their presentation," explains Fergus.

On Sunday, the teams will be putting the finishing touches to their presentations before they make their pitches to a judging panel that evening

The five judges will be Paddy Cosgrave, founder of the Dublin Web Summit; Barry O'Sullivan, senior vice-president at Cisco and investor on Dragons' Den; Barry O'Neill, CEO, StoryToys; Eamon Leonard, vice-president of engineering at Engine Yard; and Gene Murphy, founder, Redeem & Get.

"We will have a first, second and third prize as well as a special prize for the most innovative idea and the best actual presentation," adds Fergus.

The SSX was founded by Ian Haet and Brian Niessen, who both have backgrounds in creating and managing technology companies. The SSX has received private funding from US and European investors, including Greg Kidd, a first round angel investor in both Twitter and Square.

On 10 June the SSX will open at exactly 8am EST and investors will be able to create a trading account.

Before start-ups can list on the exchange, SSX performs an extensive review of the company, investigating material facts, potential liabilities and the professional backgrounds of the management team.

A company profile page including share prices, shares, shareholders, trading activity and historical data, as well as company reports every two weeks ensure total transparency.

The CEO of SSX Ian Haet said in a statement today that the markeplace was founded to connect startups and investors worldwide in order to fund early and small businesses.

Investors of any level will be able to buy ownership shares in vetted startup companies, providing a liquid market and investors will be able to buy or sell anytime and control their own account.

“Unlike other funding marketplaces, SSX allows anyone to become an Angel Investor”, Haet said. “Using their online brokerage account, they may purchase 1 share, 100 shares, or any amount of shares.”

Gates and Tenaya were accompanied in the investment by Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital and the company’s existing investors Benchmark and Founders Fund.

ResearchGate was founded in 2008 by the physicians Dr. Ijad Madisch and Dr. Sören Hofmayer along with computer specialist Horst Fickenscher. Five years later, more than 2.9 million researchers publish their findings, distribute them worldwide, and make a name for themselves on ResearchGate. The company has completed three rounds of financing from Benchmark, Founders Fund, Bill Gates and Tenaya Capital

“Our goal is to free knowledge from the ivory tower, to digitalize it and make it accessible for everyone in order to accelerate scientific progress,” Madisch, the CEO of ResearchGate, explained.

“With Bill Gates and Tenaya Capital, we’re excited to add to our group of investors whose goals are perfectly in line with ours, and who understand the relevance of what we are doing – not only for science, but for society. To ensure everyone has the possibility to lead a healthy and productive life, science has to come up with new solutions to eradicate diseases and spread new knowledge quickly and effectively. We are building the digital infrastructure to make this happen.”

Measuring scientific reputation

The new financing will help spur further innovation in the fields of sharing and searching for scientific data online, including raw data and data from failed experiments. ResearchGate is also improving the way scientific reputation is measured.

“Just as I witnessed at LinkedIn and Facebook, a true network effect business like ResearchGate has the power to change the world,” said Benchmark General Partner Matt Cohler, who led the Series A investment and is a member of the board.  

“With ResearchGate’s growing network of more than 2.9 million members, we are just beginning to see the transformative impact of removing the arcane barriers to scientific collaboration and sharing. We’re thrilled to welcome Bill Gates and Tenaya as ResearchGate enters its next phase of growth.”

Ben Boyer, Managing Director of Tenaya Capital said: “ResearchGate not only has the opportunity to influence the trillion dollars spent yearly on research and development but – through scientific breakthroughs enabled by the network's knowledge share – impact the world as a whole.”

Bill Gates image via Shutterstock

The Turning Institute, which was founded by the psychotherapist Emma Murphy, obtained the funding via the Bank of Ireland Start-up and Emerging Sectors Fund and Enterprise Ireland in a deal managed by Delta Partners.   

Murphy, who specialises in eating disorders, is also the founder of Sandyford Wellness Clinic.

She will use the funding to launch a 12-week, video-based programme for people with bulimia and binge-eating disorders. Murphy has devised the programme, which will feature on the new website ChangePanda.com.

She came up with the idea for the online programme through her work with those with eating disorders.

About two years ago, Murphy had two clients who started at the same time: a 40-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man. Both of her clients had been struggling with bulimia for more than 20 years.

"This prompted me to design a programme that could be accessed safely and confidentially online so sufferers could access help sooner rather than later," she said. The Turning Institute also received funding from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland last year.

As for the new online programme, it will be delivered via a custom-built platform that incorporates a clinical measure to determine its effectiveness in improving quality of life for users.

The platform is also the subject of a clinical trial that is being run in collaboration with the School of Communications at Dublin City University.

The Turning Institute is also developing links with US eating disorder support organisations such as the Binge Eating Disorder Association.

"There are over 30m American adults struggling with an eating disorder, so the potential market for this type of product is significant" said Alan O'Neill, co-founder, The Turning Institute. "We've exhibited at a couple of conferences in the US and there is phenomenal interest in what we are doing over there."

Already, an impressive number of global organisations, all of whom have a strong presence in the Munster region have pledged their commitment to the programme, including EMC, IBM, TrendMicro, VMWare, Moog, McAfee, Laya Healthcare and Abtran.

“Dealstart is about industry collaboration at its best,” Denis Collins, chairman of it@cork, explained. 

“The technology and business community here want to see local start-ups succeed globally.

“For start-up companies, landing that first deal with a large multinational can be invaluable when it comes to building credibility, having a key reference site, and understanding the complex procurement processes in large organisations and how to best navigate them.  

“Through Upstart, the Dealstart initiative will give start-ups access to global corporations and fast track them to success in winning deals with large organisations.”

Filling a commercial vacuum

The Dealstart initiative is the first of number of initiatives that will emerge from the Upstart programme.

Collins said the Dealstart initiative is a response to a need for direct assistance in the area of sales and business development for new companies.

Rob O’Donohoe, manager in charge of Project Management at EMC, said the initiative is totally unique in Ireland.

“It’s a symbiotic partnership between multinationals and start-ups that will potentially bring tremendous benefit to both parties. 

“Large organisations can learn agility, new models of innovation and responsiveness to market trends, while start-ups can experience the processes of a large organisation and glean valuable insights into winning that crucial first ‘big name’ commercial engagement,” O’Donohoe said..   

The Irish Venture Capital Industry Association (IVCA) said this morning that up to €800m could be leveraged from the €175m scheme announced last week by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD.

The first tranche of €100m is being offered in the next few weeks.

“Based on historic evidence, it is expected that the venture capital industry, with the support of the private sector and with syndicated funds from abroad, should be able to leverage these funds up to €800m for Irish SMEs,” commented Regina Breheny, director general, IVCA.

“The announcement of this tranche by Minister Richard Bruton is timely and important in terms of job creation,” added Dr Manus Rogan, chairman IVCA.  “We expect the current availability of capital to decrease based on our knowledge of where VC Funds are within their investment cycles.”   

Under the scheme, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, through Enterprise Ireland, will make €175m in funding available for investment in private venture capital funds. These funds will invest in high-growth Irish companies in fast-growing sectors including ICT, life sciences, high-tech manufacturing and the green economy.

The IVCA VenturePulse survey found that Irish technology companies raised €52m in funding in the first quarter of 2013. Irish SMEs have raised approximately €250m per annum. over the last five years. The IVCA said that these new funds should maintain this investment momentum.

While B*Different will provide both traditional and digital marketing services for established and new companies, a special package, B*Beta, has been designed specifically for start-ups. “With the explosion of people setting up start-up businesses in Ireland, especially in the tech sector, I felt it was an untapped area and one in which B*Different could fill,” said McCormack.

The B*Beta package is designed to help start-ups with brand creation as well as digital and traditional marketing. McCormack has over 10 years’ experience in marketing and was previously the marketing director of Just-Eat.ie. She also appeared on TV3’s The Apprentice.

The establishment of B*Different will create five full-time positions in Dublin city centre where the company is based. These roles in sales, marketing, development and administration will be filled in the next six months.

Women Invent Tomorrow is Silicon Republic’s year-long campaign to champion the role of women in science, technology, engineering and maths

“We are keen to support projects that are new and take an innovative approach, and will engage people who may not be involved in sports and other activity-based hobbies at the moment as well as those that seek to highlight the importance of a balanced diet,” said Erica Roseingrave, public affairs manager for Coca-Cola HBC Ireland.

“The Fund also aims to recognise the enormous contribution made by organisers and volunteers each week across the country through worthwhile initiatives, and to maximise the effectiveness of their work through targeted financial support from Coca-Cola.”

The Coca-Cola Thank You Fund was formed in 2011 on the occasion of the Coca-Cola Company’s 125th anniversary and has seen €125,000 donated to non-profit organisations throughout the island of Ireland each year since.

The fund is supported by The Federation of Irish Sport, The Wheel and The Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA).

Inspiring communities

A total of €125,000 is available this year for distribution through the Fund. The overall winner will receive €25,000 and a further ten organisations will receive €10,000 each. The projects selected will represent best practice and will serve as a model for other communities wishing to implement similar programmes.

Applicant organisations will be required to provide details on the reach and impact of their proposed project, as well as the innovative aspect which will capture the imagination and interest of the local community and encourage them to become involved.

In 2012 the winner of the main award of €25,000 was The Irish Olympic Handball Association (IOHA) based in Dublin. The IOHA applied for funding to introduce the concept of Street Handball to communities across Ireland.

Their entry focused on introducing 10,000 new people to Street Handball and the training of 200 teachers and youth group leaders across Ireland who would be able to make this vision a reality in Irish communities.

The Fund will accept applications until 19th July, 2013. All applications should be submitted via the Coca-Cola website: http://www.coca-cola.ie/thankyou

Having had more than 40 years of experience in the printing trade, digital printer Terry Rowan set up Inspire 3D in early 2011 after researching the potential for 3D printing. In addition to offering 3D printing services, the company sells 3D technologies, such as printers and scanners.

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is the process of making a three-dimensional object from a digital model. The industry is starting to gain pace for industries that want to create prototypes quickly. Another advantage of 3D printing is that it reduces waste in contrast to conventional manufacturing.

The 3D printing technology turns 3D digital designs made using computer-aided-design (CAD) or other modelling software into physical objects. The technology can be used for the prototyping of products that are in design and in architectural models, the dental and medical industries, and even aviation.

Future of manufacturing

"I originally started following this revolutionary technology about 10 years ago and finally decided it was time to go into business in 2011," explains Rowan.

Over the next 12 months, he set about researching machines and material advancements, visiting exhibitions and manufacturing operations in Europe and further afield.

"I saw the potential in 3D printing and the future of manufacturing, with its cost efficiency, speed of producing one-off and low-volume products in many materials, from ABS plastics to resins, powders and metals."

Rowan explains that 3D printing is a process where a material is laid down layer upon layer to build up a 3D object.

"It's bit like building a house out of LEGO, row upon row of bricks, to produce your desired house," he says. "With 3D printing, you go from design straight to production at the click of a mouse."

As for Inspire 3D, the company offers one-off production of designs, rapid prototyping and low-volume production. The latter service is often used by artists and designers who need to produce a limited number of items for product development and testing or to sell.

"Currently, our target markets range from craftspeople, product designers, jewellers and architects up to industrial applications for full-scale production of parts that are too complicated and costly to produce using conventional means," says Rowan.

Online file up-loader

Inspire 3D now has an online file up-loader system that allows people to send the company their digital files. People can choose from more than 20 materials for their products, including aluminium, a cobalt chrome alloy and casting waxes for jewellery and metal work.

Via this new system, Rowan says a client sets up an account, fills in his or her details, selects the desired material, finish and quantity needed and attaches the file.

"We aim to reply to all uploads within six working hours with a quotation and estimated delivery time. Once the client is happy and the order is confirmed, the file is sent to print."

He says the online system has cut Inspire 3D's processing of orders from an average of 75 hours down to a day.

"It allows us to get a client's order into the print queue earlier, giving them a faster design-to-production time."

3D equipment

In addition to its bespoke printing service, the company sells a range of 3D printing and scanning equipment. For instance, it is a reseller for Fabbster, a 3D printer for home use to enable people to create objects out of plastics.

Right now, Inspire 3D employs five people, three in sales and service and two in production. Rowan says the goal is to increase staffing levels as demand for the company's services continues to grow.

For the remainder of 2013, he says the plan is to launch an online web store to sell a new line of 3D products.

"We also plan to expand the range of materials and finishes available to our clients on the online uploader, along with the range of machines we sell," he affirms.

Bruton today issued the first call for Expressions of Interest from venture capital funds seeking investment.

He said Ireland, despite its success in attracting multinational investment, will rely heavily on the success of the indigenous private sector to bring about a true economic recovery and establish the country on a growth track for decades to come.

“While the multinational sector is and will remain crucial to our industrial strategy, I am determined to ensure that we also support the creation of a powerful engine of Irish enterprise that can sustain and create the levels of employment we need. A key part of the Government’s plans to support Irish businesses is to provide access to credit for a range of different types of businesses, from micro-enterprises employing fewer than 10 people up to mid-sized and large engineering companies in need of development capital.”

Bruton is targeting an additional €525m in funding from the private sector, which will mean a total of €700m available for investment over the lifetime of the scheme. It is expected that the average initial venture investment in a company made by the funds targeted under this call could be of the order of €2m.

Under the scheme, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, through Enterprise Ireland, will make funding available for investment in private seed and venture capital funds. These funds, in turn, will invest in high-growth innovative Irish companies in fast-growing sectors, including ICT, life sciences, high-tech manufacturing and the green economy.

This first call for expressions of interest will see Enterprise Ireland committing up to €100m to venture capital funds targeting investment in the wider ICT and life sciences sectors. It is expected that over the lifetime of the scheme it will benefit hundreds of Irish companies, generate tens of millions of euros in additional export sales and create thousands of jobs. Further expressions of interest will be issued over the next two years.

This morning’s announcement took place at at Swrve, an Irish company that develops cutting-edge technology for in-app digital marketing. Founded in 2010 by Hugh Reynolds and Steve Collins, formerly of Havok, the company has raised significant amounts in venture capital funding from some of the top international names in the sector, including most recently closing a round of US$6.25m. Swrve now employs more than 40 people in its offices in Dublin and San Francisco.  

Swrve counts some of the largest game and app developers on its customer list, such as Activision, Epic Games and Irish-based Story Toys. Swrve is projecting triple-digit revenue growth in 2013.

Latest funding mechanisms from Irish Government

The scheme is part of a series of new funding mechanisms put in place by the Irish Government, which will make available a total of more than €2bn in additional non-bank lending for Irish businesses:

• €850m through three SME funds from the NPRF
• €450m credit guarantee scheme
• €90m micro-finance scheme
• €225m development capital scheme
• €10m international start-up fund
• €120m second call under Innovation Fund Ireland

CoderDojo is an Irish-led global movement teaching young people how to code, develop websites, apps, games and more, in a social, collaborative learning environment. The initiative has grown to include more than 15,000 children who are learning to write software every weekend in more than 35 countries.

MyMind is a self-referral model of mental health that provides psychological and psychotherapy services to people seeking mental health support.

Their founders will be hoping to impress an expert panel that includes Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield and the director of Ashoka Ireland, Paul O’Hara.

The overall winners will scoop €10,000 and will receive specialist business mentoring from social entrepreneur network Ashoka.

The winners will also have their business logo featured on a special Ben & Jerry’s tub to be launched in 2014 and will travel to the Ben & Jerry’s headquarters in the US state of Vermont to mark the company’s 35th anniversary this year.

This is the second year of the ice-cream maker’s social entrepreneur competition. In March, for the first time an Irish company called Archipelago was to appear on tubs of Ben & Jerry’s new ice cream Clever Cookies after being one of four companies to win the Join Our Core competition aimed at finding the world’s best social entrepreneurs.

“When Ben (Cohen) and I set up the company in 1978, we believed giving back to the community was as important as making great tasting ice cream,” said Greenfield.

“We’re humbled by the number and standard of entries we’ve seen this year, and can’t wait to meet and hear more from this year’s finalists.”

The company, which Robert O'Shaughnessy and Brian Finnerty set up nine months ago, was picked from a pool of 1,577 applications to take part in the accelerator programme, along with 99 other start-ups from 28 countries.

Reverbeo is pioneering a cloud-based solution that automatically creates a multilingual version of any website. Its tool is currently in beta mode.

Start-up Chile is an initiative of the Chilean government that seeks out early-stage, high-potential entrepreneurs to bootstrap their start-ups in Chile.

Reverbeo is now set to obtain US$40,000 of seed capital from Start-up Chile. O'Shaughnessy said this funding will bring to €100,000 in seed funding the start-up has raised from the accelerator, along with the NDRC and Enterprise Ireland. The company took part in the NDRC's LaunchPad programme in 2012.

In July, O'Shaughnessy and Finnerty will temporarily relocate to Chile to participate in the six-month programme. With the seed funding, they are hoping to set up a sales office in South America.

In addition, Reverbeo has this week been announced as one of 12 finalists for the InnoPitch European Young Innovators Award, which will take place in Brussels in early June.

At this event, the company will participate in a mentoring workshop with the seed investor Carlos Eduardo Espinal from Seedcamp, the micro seed fund for tech start-ups, O'Shaughnessy said.

He added that it has been a great week of announcements for the start-up.

"Building a product from scratch is a long and slow process and positive industry feedback like this is the perfect motivation to keep pushing forward," he said.

The round follows on a previous €1.15m round from the Bank of Ireland Start-up and Emerging Sectors Equity Fund, managed by Delta Partners, Irrus Investments and Enterprise Ireland.

Declan Kennedy, Conor Ryan and Peter Elger founded the company in 2009 in Waterford. Since then, the company has become one of Facebook’s leading developer partners and has secured significant new customers in Intel, Dove, Unilever, Marks & Spencer, Tourism Ireland, VisitBritain, Boylesports, The Met Office and Paddy Power, to name a few.

“We are thrilled to secure this new round of investment led by the Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund and to be working with Investec Ventures, while deepening our relationship with Delta Partners and Irrus Investments,” said CEO and co-founder Declan Kennedy.

“Betapond delivers innovative social technology solutions to a great portfolio of global brands. This funding enables the company to accelerate its development and go-to-market plan to be a global leader in social commerce solutions.”

Accelerating social commerce

With the latest investment, Betapond plans to use the funds to accelerate development of its social commerce offering to retailers, powering product recommendations from other Facebook users the consumer trusts.

With the market for social commerce expected to reach US$30bn in revenue by 2015, according to Booz and Allen, and 81pc of consumers getting advice from family and friends about purchase decisions, Betapond is in a position to take its experience helping brands use Facebook more effectively and apply it in this explosive growth area.

A spokesman explained the funding will enable Betapond to launch a set of solutions for retailers that will make it quick and easy for them to personalise the consumer shopping experience by leveraging the vast pool of social data represented by Facebook’s 1.1bn users and what they’re interested in.

“The company has already established itself as a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer and has a proven ability to build relationships with some of the world’s best brands,” said Leo Hamill, a partner with Investec Ventures.

“Betapond combines many of the key attributes we look for when investing in a business, including a highly professional and capable management team, a proven business model and a clear strategy to grow the business both domestically and internationally.”

Delta is participating in this round from its expansion stage fund, Delta Equity Fund III Ltd Partnership.

“Over the past 18 months, Betapond has laid the foundation for its social recommendation product offering,” said John Kenny of Delta Partners. “We are pleased to welcome Investec Ventures to the table at this pivotal time in the company’s development.”

Last year, Betapond acquired iPlatform, the UK’s first Facebook-preferred developer for an undisclosed sum.

Social commerce image via Shutterstock

Based on the VenturePulse survey, Irish companies raised €52.1m from investors in the first quarter of 2013. This is in line with €52.2m worth of funds raised during the same period last year.

Dr Manus Rogan, chairman, IVCA, said this was a "highly satisfactory" performance, especially as activity in international markets is experiencing volatility.  

"For example, US quarter numbers are down 6pc, as the global credit crunch continues to bite," he said.

Early stage companies raised seed capital to the value of €7.3m in Q1 2013. This compares with €13.3m of funds raised by early stage firms in Q1 2012.

The report found that first-round funding from January to March of this year was 14pc of funds raised compared to 20pc in 2012. Stephen Keogh, a corporate partner in William Fry, which acted as legal adviser in more than half of the funding rounds in the first quarter, said the data could be an early warning sign.

"Seed funds supported by the banking sector and Enterprise Ireland's seed and venture capital programme of 2006-2012 will be fully invested in the near term. These funds will need to be renewed if entrepreneurs are to be supported as actively as in the last five years," he said.

The IVCA's director-general Regina Breheny said the venture capital (VC) community continues to be the main source of funding for Irish SMEs both through direct investment and as the local lead investor for international syndicate investors.

She said that since the onset of the credit crunch in 2008, 764 Irish SMEs raised venture capital of €1.5bn. According to Breheny, these funds were raised almost exclusively by Irish VC fund managers who, during this period, supported the creation of up to 20,000 jobs and attracted more than €450m of capital into Ireland. She said these VC fund managers geared up the State's investment through the seed and venture capital programme by almost seven times.

Business financing image via Shutterstock

Other investors in Trino include Enterprise Ireland and Growcorp. Both the Wellcome Trust and Fountain Healthcare Partners will be represented on the board of directors.

The company, which works in the area of anti-inflammatory therapeutics, is developing PH46A, the lead candidate from a novel and proprietary class of drugs which was inspired by the indane scaffold molecule derived from a Taiwanese fern. PH46A is a potential first-in-class drug for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which could be used in both ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD).

Other molecules in Trino’s drug class show promise with broad anti-inflammatory activity that could be suitable for applications in dermatology, pulmonary and auto-immune disease and the company will work to develop these compounds internally and in partnership with major international research centres.

“Our commitment to Trino is a strong validation of the quality of the investment opportunity in Irish biomedical research, particularly in areas such as immunology and gastroenterology,” Dr Ena Prosser, Fountain Healthcare Partners, explained.

From leaf to lab

The company founded by pharmacologist Prof Neil Frankish and medicinal chemist Prof Helen Sheridan centred on their work on pharmaceutical-grade drugs based on the indane skeleton as derived from a Taiwanese fern, used historically in plant-based medicine.

“This significant investment validates our research, enabling us to expand the Trino team and develop our clinical partnerships so that we can investigate the effectiveness of our research where it is needed - in patients with inflammatory diseases and ineffective drugs,” Frankish said.

Initial funding of €2.2m from this syndicate was used to complete GMP manufacture and pre-clinical testing. The additional €7m investment will be used to bring the drug through formal First in Man testing in healthy volunteers, to identify the international clinical investigator network to run the patient studies and to complete initial Phase II testing of PH46A in mild to moderate ulcerative colitis.

“Current treatments for inflammatory bowel diseases often have significant side effects and patients are faced with tough decisions in how to manage their condition,” Dr Richard Seabrook, head of business development at the Wellcome Trust, explained.

“We are pleased to extend our successful partnership with Trino to support the development of PH46A as a potential new therapy for these debilitating disorders.”

The event series is run by Archipelago, the not-for-profit youth group that was set up in 2010 by John Egan. He is also Dublin ambassador of Sandbox, the global community of young innovators.

Tonight's Archie Talks event will take kick off at The Sugar Club in Dublin at 6.30pm. Sophie Morris from the Dublin-based cookie dough start-up Kooky Dough will host the event, which will home in on 'co-founders'. Morris is the co-founder of Kooky Dough along with Graham Clarke.

Morris will be joined on stage by the co-founders of three Irish start-ups: Dave Lombard and Daragh Whelan from Pure Brazen, a creator of natural food stock; Katie Cronin and Liz Fingleton from the product design studio Klickity Design; and Robbie Godsil and Mark from the debs planning company PlanMyDebs.ie.

Those attending tonight's event can opt to 'pay what they can' if they book their ticket online. Otherwise they can pay €15 at the door, but all gate receipts will be given to one start-up as part of the ArchieBoost competition.

Steven Menton from Archie Talks said the aim of the seminar series is to give Ireland's young entrepreneurs a voice.

"We're trying to establish a consensus of what enterprise means to young people in Ireland and to encourage people to innovate," he said. "There are a lot of young people doing extraordinary things in Ireland right now – they just need somewhere to shout about it."