(Left to right) Rory Caren, IBM ecosystem developer relations manager; John Phelan, Dublin BIC; and Paddy Flynn, Google director of product quality operations
Dublin is to host 50 of Europe’s most investible start-ups on 3-4 November as part of the Silicon Stroll Bootcamp event featuring major tech companies and pitch battles.
Some 130 companies have put themselves forward for selection in the competition funded by European Investor Gate (EIG), an EU project promoting international investment in ICT start-ups and being managed by the Dublin Business Innovation Centre (Dublin BIC).
The first day of the event will have participants discuss ‘future insights, trends and innovations’ with tech giants Google, PayPal and IBM before competing in head-to-head pitch battles in front of an audience that will include more than 30 international investors.
Of the 50 who will compete in the event, 20 are registered in Ireland, while the other 30 are spread across 13 European countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Italy.
Some of the Irish companies confirmed to take part include NewsWhip, which has recently been accepted to Silicon Valley’s Blackbox Connect accelerator, as well as Vivocha, Xintec and Huggity.
Explaining how the event came about, Dublin BIC’s John Phelan said, “The idea for this event came from a discussion Dublin BIC had with Google about how to continue to evolve the start-up ecosystem in Ireland.
“I think this is a terrific example of how large multinationals can work with local support organisations and achieve something very worthwhile. The input of Google, IBM, PayPal and Microsoft in this event is simply invaluable.”
The event will culminate in a finale, in which one company will be crowned Europe’s most investable start-up and will receive a cash prize. It is expected, however, that many of the 50 companies will come away with new investors, with the average investment being sought by the 50 companies being between €500,000 and €1.5m.
