Cork start-up Clearword raises $3.25m in seed funding

13 Jan 2022

The Clearword team. Image: Clearword

The software company is working on a new platform that timestamps, transcribes and organises online meetings.

Cork-based start-up Clearword has raised $3.25m funding in a seed round to develop its software focused on remote working and online meetings.

The funding round was led by Connect Ventures and included Act Venture Capital, Hello World, Unpopular Ventures, technologist Dave Concannon, Oyster CEO Tony Jamous and TrueLayer CEO Luca Martinetti.

Clearword said the funding will be used to help develop its software platform that automatically timestamps and transcribes meetings. The start-up added that it has been “very selective” in picking its investors and has looked for those who are “100pc invested in our vision” and “product driven”.

“Figuring out the perfect combination of truly supportive institutional investors and angel investors is always hard, for any start-up. After having carefully picked what we consider to be a set of investors with complementary value-add, we are thrilled to embark on this journey with them to build the platform for your meetings,” the company added in a statement today (13 January).

Clearword said it has focused on remote working and meetings, describing the modern online meeting experience as “disjointed and frustrating”, noting issues in trying to remember meeting topics or catching up on missed meetings.

“With that in mind, we decided to build Clearword with the lofty goal of unifying the meeting experience at every stage of the meeting lifecycle: before, during, and after the meeting.”

The start-up’s platform aims to plan, schedule and prepare meetings for companies, particularly those that have remote working or hybrid working staff. The meetings are also placed in a searchable library.

The company also started a remote work podcast discussing topics such as productivity tools, leadership techniques and general remote work approaches.

Clearword was founded last year by David Coallier, Daire Irwin and Clodagh Monks, who previously worked together in analytics start-up Barricade before it was acquired by security giant Sophos in 2016.

Updated, 9.00am, 22 February 2022: A previous version of this article omitted Clodagh Monks as a co-founder of Clearword. SiliconRepublic.com apologises for the error.

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Leigh Mc Gowran is a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com