Three ambitious young start-up companies have had enough of the doom and gloom, the Greek financial crisis, Willie O’Dea TD and the Hanger 6 debacle and are taking off to Silicon Valley this weekend to meet some top dogs.
“With all this negativity, there is a danger that we are overlooking the dogged resilience of large pockets of Irish business,” said John Dineen of Cork e-learning firm Learnpipe.
“Yes, pretty much every sector in Ireland is feeling the pain. But let’s not forget that there is still large numbers of Irish start-ups who harbour serious ambitions to play on the world stage,” he said.
So with that in mind, this weekend Learnpipe, Tapmap.com and imeeGOLF are heading to Silicon Valley.
During their trip, they will meet with some of the region’s highest-profile technology companies, including Google and Sun Microsystems and will pitch their businesses to some of the valley’s most respected venture capitalists.
Selected from more than 500 applicants, all three companies are partaking in the Endeavour Programme, which is based out of the Tom Crean Centre in Tralee, Co Kerry.
The Endeavour Programme is targeted at ambitious, high achievers who are focused on changing the business space they occupy.
Meet the companies:
– Learnipe is a training search site that makes it much easier for you to find training courses and classes around the world. From cooking to yoga to advanced Java web development, it helps you weigh all the course options and make the right choice.
– Tapmap.com helps shoppers to quickly find the product they are looking for in the store that is closest to them.
– imeeGOLF is a game-changing golf analytics system that tracks every shot and uploads the data to imeeGOLF.com, where the golfer can actually see their rounds of golf and compete with other golfers around the world.
“Despite how we seem to portray our piece of the world right now, Ireland continues to churn out some pretty ambitious start-ups,” said Dineen.
By John Kennedy
Photo: Three Irish start-up companies, Learnpipe, Tapmap.com and imeeGOLF are off to Silicon Valley to meet with high-profile companies and pitch their businesses to venture capitalists
