Joe Drumgoole’s CloudSplit has emerged as the winner of the latest Launch Pad programme from the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC).
The €24,000 continuation fund for the first prize and runner-up company Point-the-Way comprises support from NDRC plus matching investment from external entrepreneurial investors who also made up the entrepreneur judging panel.
CloudSplit, a company offering a groundbreaking cost-control application for cloud computing, succeeded in a highly competitive programme among a cohort of nine other Launch Pad projects.
Competing against nine other start-ups to secure the prize, CloudSplit was judged by a panel of successful entrepreneurs which included Dylan Collins, founder and CEO of Jolt Online, Eamonn Fallon founder and CEO of Daft.ie, RTE 1 Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Bobby Kerr was represented by his brother Paul Kerr, and Jonathan Siegel, founder and CEO of Rightcart.
“CloudSplit is a great illustration of NDRC’s strategy for the Launch Pad programme to assist in bridging the gap between research, innovation and investment, by focusing on the step from idea to incorporation,” explained Ben Hurley, CEO of NDRC.
“The diversity of the Launch Pad projects and their progress to date emphasises the NDRC’s aim to forge bolder attitudes towards invention and investment, bringing initial innovative concepts to commercial reality.”
Many of the other projects also made considerable progress under Launch Pad, including runner-up Point-the-Way an advanced GPS navigation system for the visually impaired.
“The Launch Pad programme as a whole demonstrates the NDRC’s ability to take ideas with academic research linkages and transform them into viable commercial entities,” Noel Ruane, co-ordinator of the Launch Pad programme, explained.
By John Kennedy
Photo: NDRC chief executive Ben Hurley with CloudSplit founder and seasoned software entrepreneur Joe Drumgoole
