Pulsate selected to represent Ireland at World Start-up Competition

2 Sep 2014

Pulsate founder Patrick Leddy

Patrick Leddy’s start-up company Pulsate, which focuses on the marketing opportunities provided by technologies like Apple’s iBeacon, has been selected to represent Ireland at the World Start-up Competition in Korea.

Some 35 tech start-ups battled it out last week at FCR Media’s offices in Dublin to win the Irish leg of the competition to find the country’s best start-up to represent Ireland at the competition on 24 November.

The finalists were Restored Hearing, Sensipass, TenderScout, Pulsate, CloudDock, Bizimply, FanFootage and Clinch.

Leddy will compete against 40 of the world’s best tech start-ups for a prize fund of US$100,000 at the international final in the Sheraton in Seoul, South Korea.

Going beyond bricks and mortar

“The judges were very impressed with all the competitors and chose Pulsate as it is a company with an innovative product that is disrupting a very large market,” the judges said.

“Bricks-and-mortar retailers are currently searching for ways to engage better with their customers and Pulsate would seem to have a large part of the answer.”

The World Start-up Competition is being run by Korea’s Dream Bank Foundation for young entrepreneurs in conjunction with the Start-up Nations Summit in November.

Leddy will join #StartupIreland CEO Eoin Costello on the journey to Korea. Costello will be addressing the Start-up Nations Summit on the topic of the rapidly emerging start-up ecosystem in Ireland.

“Sending an Irish entrant to the World Start-up Competition for the first time underscores #StartupIreland’s mission of playing a role in helping Ireland become a global tech start-up hub,” Costello said.

“We hope to build on the growing momentum in the Irish start-up sector to send a message out to the world that Ireland is the land of opportunity for start-ups that want to take on the world! Patrick Leddy is the perfect person to promote Ireland’s tech start-up ecosystem on the international stage and we have high hopes of an Irish success on the day.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com