Eventmama team pictured at the NDRC. From left: Nicole Trovato, community manager; Louise Caldwell (founder and CEO); and John McHugh, product designer
Our tech start-up of the week is Eventmama, a new digital start-up set up by Louise Caldwell. The venture, as described by Caldwell, is like a little online ‘black book’ for event organisers to quickly source ‘quirky’ and cheaper venues, catering and entertainment suppliers for corporate events – think weddings or parties. Eventmama has just spun out of the National Digital Research Centre’s (NDRC)LaunchPad incubation programme. And, under Caldwell’s lead, the start-up has recently gleaned €50,000 funding through Enterprise Ireland.
Founded by Caldwell, who is now CEO, Eventmama celebrated its six-month birthday on 25 July last. Earlier this year, the start-up won a place on Launchpad 7 ( a start-up incubation programme) in the NDRC. The programme wrapped up in June. Eventmama joined the NDRC programme in February.
What is Eventmama?
Caldwell says that the original idea for Eventmama was to create an online platform for people to book entertainers for children’s parties.
The start-up pivoted, however, after Caldwell detected a niche to collate information for corporate events.
“Very quickly, during our customer development and research, we discovered a much bigger opportunity in corporate events,” she explains. “We found that up to 70pc of people who organise events in companies don’t do this as their full-time job.
Caldwell says this means they spend way too much time, sourcing suppliers, have hassle setting them up to be paid and don’t know who to trust because they haven’t worked with them before.
Describing Eventmama as an online marketplace, she says the site aims to make it easier for event organisers to source and book unique venues, quirky catering and entertainment suppliers for corporate events.
“Eventmama gives you direct access to a ‘little black book’ of suppliers, rated and reviewed by the community. It will save event organisers time, money and hassle.”
The site is currently in beta mode and is signing up suppliers and event organisers. At the minute 150 event organisers based in Ireland are ready to trial Eventmama, according to Caldwell.
She says that, along with the other director at the company, Mark Doyle, the duo have pivoted the company to target the event-management space. The aim is for Eventmama to be ready to launch in September.
Mama of all events
Caldwell says that Eventmama will add an “extra layer” in the event-organising space to help people source quirky things like fire-eaters for 30th birthday parties, retro ice-cream vans for weddings, ideas for corporate summer events and ‘arty’ parties for family events and kiddies’ get-togethers.
Watch this space to learn more about Eventmama’s launch in September!
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